Social Context of Homicide

• Lack of access to jobs produces high male unemployment and underemployment

• This in turn leads to high rates of out of wedlock births, female-headed households and the extreme concentration of poverty.

• Single-parent households lead to lower levels of social control and guardianship

• The association between family structure and violent crime identical in sign and magnitude for whites and blacks.

• Racial differences at the neighborhood level in availability of jobs, family structure, opportunities for marriage and concentrated poverty underlie racial differences in crime and homicide.

• Source: Sampson 1987