RACIAL SEGREGATION AND BLACK URBAN HOMICIDE

Social deprivation and social isolation perspectives provide grounds for expecting residential segregation to increase violent crime among oppressed minorities. Unfortunately, scholars seldom have included residential segregation in analyses of violent crime. In addition, most research has analyzed the relationship between general rather than race-specific or ethnic-specific crime rates and social and demographic predictors. To address these shortcomings, we examine the impact of racial residential segregation on rates of African-American homicide victimization for large U.S. central cities. The analyses demonstrate that black-white segregation leads to higher rates of black killing although the relationship exists only for stranger and acquaintance homicides. This suggests that social isolation, rather than social deprivation, is the mechanism by which segregation leads to higher levels of homicide among African Americans.