Crime and the Spatial Concentration of Poverty in the United States: 1980 - 2010

• In Event: Poverty and Crime

Abstract

In an influential account, William Julius Wilson (1987) attributed elevated crime rates to the concentration of poverty in urban neighborhoods. Wilson’s argument has generated significant scholarly attention, but its spatial implications have not been extensively examined in prior research. We investigate the relationship between temporal changes in crime rates in US counties and the spatial concentration of poverty within and between counties from 1980 to 2010, a period of marked swings in levels of both violent and property crime. Following Wilson, we anticipate that crime increases are associated with increases in the spatial concentration of poverty and crime reductions are linked to decreases in poverty concentration over the 30-year period. We discuss the implications of our results for future research on crime and the spatial distribution of economic disadvantage.

Authors

• Eric Baumer, Pennsylvania State University

• Richard Rosenfeld, University of Missouri - St. Louis

• Steven Messner, University at Albany, SUNY