White, Black, and Latino Homicide Rates: Why the Difference?

The racial homicide differential in the United States is extraordinarily large, with minorities exhibiting much higher homicide rates than non-Latino whites. Several sociological explanations for crime suggest that if whites were subjected to the same structural pressures as minorities, white homicide rates would approach levels currently experienced among minorities. Based on 1990 data for 129 U.S. metropolitan areas, this study quantifies the extent o which differences in structural characteristics among the non-Latino white, non-Latino black, and Latino populations contribute othe homicide differential. The analysis reveals that all of the white-Latino homicide differential and about half of the white-black homicide gap could be reduced if the characteris-tics of minorities were improved to levels currently exhibited by whites. Race and ethnicity continue to be among the most important predictors of homicide com-mission and victimization in the United States, an issue that receives great attention from the media and, over the past few years, from social scientists. Recent figures indicate that young African-American males have eight times the homicide victimization and offending rates of their white counterparts, and incarceration rates for violent offenses for the black population are about five times those of the white population (U.S. Department of Justice 1999). Latinos also have an elevated risk of involvement in violent crime compared to non-Latino whites,