The Effects of Poverty on Black, White, and Latino Homicides: Testing for Racial/Ethnic Invariance

• In Event: Communities and Place: Neighborhood Dynamics, Violence, and Social Control - Exploring Crime, Reentry, and Racial Contexts

Abstract

We estimate the effects of local and extra-local poverty on race/ethnic-disaggregated homicides to test Sampson and Wilson’s racial invariance thesis. Moving beyond the traditional focus on Black–White disparities in homicide mortality, we include Latinos, the largest ethnic group in the United States. To advance research on racial/ethnic disparities in homicide deaths, we estimate the spatial effects of poverty at both the neighborhood level (census block group) and a broader spatial scale (within a five-mile radius of the focal block group). Using medical examiner data from 2015–2019, we employ negative binomial regression models to simultaneously analyze Black, White, and Latino homicide deaths in Los Angeles County, CA, and formally test for equality of regression coefficients. We find that local poverty (within the focal block group) has a similar effect on homicide death counts across all three racial/ethnic groups. However, poverty in surrounding block groups is statistically significant only for Black and Latino homicide deaths, with a stronger effect on Black homicides. We discuss implications for the racial invariance thesis and the Latino paradox.

Authors

• Wenyi Wang, The University of Texas at Dallas

• Christopher Contreras, University of Massachusetts Boston