|
Every year in the United States, suicide and homicide both claim many
lives. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
in 1998 there were 30,575 deaths identified as suicide, which makes it
the eighth leading cause of death nationwide. In the same year suicide
was the third leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 24 years
old. According to the Department of Justice (1998), in 1998 there were
16,914 homicides recorded by the police. Homicide is the second leading
cause of death among people aged between 15 and 24 years old and the leading
cause of death among black men of the same age group (CDC 1998). The human
costs of both suicide and homicide are not only disheartening but also
pose grave concern to both the public health and legal systems.
Both suicide and homicide are violent acts. The obvious difference is
that the former directs violence toward oneself whereas the latter directs
it toward others. The majority of previous studies on violence treat suicide
and homicide as two independent phenomena (Lester 1994; Kaplan and Geling
1998). Very rarely do studies examine these two forms of violence under
the same theoretical perspective and empirical framework. Furthermore,
researchers in each area are often unaware of new developments in the
other's field (Unnithan et al. 1994).
From a historical viewpoint, treating suicide and homicide as separate
research subjects is a rather recent phenomenon. Henry and Short (1954)
pointed out that there has been a long intellectual tradition in Europe
to study these two forms of violence as a single phenomenon. For example,
two nineteenth century Italian scholars, Enrico Morselli and Enrico Ferri,
and later the prominent Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud all proposed
to explain suicide and homicide as two sides of the same phenomenon. Their
arguments focus on individuals' inner thought processes in committing
either suicide or homicide. Freud,1 for
instance, argued that the suicidal impulse results from an individual's
homicidal drive, induced by either an individual's sexual frustration
or death instinct that turns toward oneself. Such an intellectual tradition,
however, did not generate much scholarly interest among American sociologists
before the end of the Second World War, partially because the influential
French sociologist Emile Durkheim successfully refuted such an individualistic
approach (Whitt 1994).
Examining 19th century European data, Durkheim (1897, 1951) argues that
there seems to be an inverse relation between suicide and homicide rates,
but such a correlation is not a constant. Instead, both rates tend to
increase during economic recession and decline during tumultuous wartime.
Had the individual-based argument been correct, as proposed by other European
scholars, such a positive correlation would not have existed. Durkheim
contended that social factors beyond individuals' control are the sources
that contribute to the variation of both suicide and homicide rates.
Durkheim's study on suicide has inspired much sociological imagination
regarding not just the origin of anti-social behaviors but also the nature
and functioning of human society. While Durkheim was very specific on
the causes and types of suicide, his writing on the causes and typology
of homicide was vague at best.2 His core
concept in explaining suicide, anomie, can also be used to explain homicide
in a society just as effectively. Therefore, Durkheim's ideas cannot distinguish
specific sources that cause either suicide or homicide. His significant
influence, nevertheless, on the study of suicide and homicide is to lead
sociologists to investigate suicide and homicide as separate events. Treating
both forms of violent human expression as two seemingly unrelated events
runs the risk of ignoring common fundamental social forces explaining
both suicide and homicide. Such indifference will undermine a broader
and deeper understanding of the causes of violence.
RECENT STUDIES EXAMINING BOTH SUICIDE AND HOMICIDE
Compared to a large body of research on suicide and homicide investigated
separately, recent studies examining suicide and homicide are not common
(See for example, Baller et al. 2001; Cutright and Fernquish 2000). Nevertheless,
several studies have produced significant findings and substantive arguments.
Using state-level data in 1980, David Lester (1994) documented patterns
of suicide and homicide in the US. Lester found that suicide rates were
strongly related with the level of interstate migration. Also, divorce
rates and homicide rates were strongly related with the percentage of
black residents in each state. From the same study, southern states registered
higher homicide rates than the rest of the nation, whereas states in the
northeastern region have the highest suicide rates in the US. Men have
both higher suicide and homicide rates than women, and the degree of gender
differential is contingent upon other socioeconomic factors such as church
attendance, divorce rates, etc. Lester did not infer from these patterns
of suicide and homicide in the US any theoretical argument concerning
the intrinsic relation, or lack thereof, between these two forms of violence.
Using cross-national data, Pampel and Williamson (2001) found that change
in suicide and homicide rates is contingent upon demographic structure,
family change, and sociopolitical equality (also see Lee, 2001). Large
age cohort exacerbates youth economic prospects but enhances the well
being of elderly cohort, thus contributing to a higher youth lethal violence
relative to the elderly's. Changes in work, marriage, divorce, and fertility
may also increase youth lethal violence relative to that of the elderly.
Finally, youth lethal violence is moderated through social institutions
that emphasize on egalitarian distribution of scarce resources. Pampl
and Williamson concluded that both suicide and homicide react to the above-mentioned
social determinant in a similar fashion across nations.
After analyzing the correlation between the business cycle and suicide/homicide
data, Henry and Short (1954:14) concluded that both types of violent behavior
are "…aggressive acts which respond in a consistent way to objective
frustrations generated by the flow of economic forces." Suicide is
viewed as an aggressive behavior that targets oneself, whereas homicide
targets others. They argued that "…suicide varies negatively
and homicide positively with the strength of external restraint over behavior."
(1954: 17) Essentially, Henry and Short's argument is an extension of
a simplistic frustration-aggression thesis that owes its intellectual
roots to European scholars such as Sigmund Freud. Their contribution to
the understanding of a common source of suicide and homicide is that,
much like Durkheim's argument, they pointed out that it is the relational
system that determines the direction of aggression.
Historian Roger Lane (1979) attempted to explain three types of violent
death in 19th century Philadelphia: suicide, murder, and accident. He
observed that during the 19th century, the city of Philadelphia experienced
a sizable increase in suicide rates around 1870 after a long period of
stability. At the same time, accident rates in the city started to decline,
and homicide rates decreased steadily and significantly. Lane attributed
the simultaneous increase of suicide rates and decrease of both accident
and homicide rates to the socialization/internalization process that was
essential to an emerging industrial economy. The burgeoning factory-based
economy in Philadelphia promoted a work environment and a public school
system that "…put a premium on the ability to endure long stretches
of frustration and boredom" (1979: 122). Outwardly impulsive behaviors
were deemed as incompatible with work ethics required by the economic
system and reinforced at public schools. Therefore, the relation among
the three types of violent death is best understood as a product of a
socialization process that took place during the industrial revolution
in 19th century Philadelphia.
Perhaps the most significant development during recent decades in attempting
to explain both suicide and homicide as two sides of the same phenomenon
is the stream analogy argument proposed by Unnithan et al. (1994). Influenced
by early European scholars (see Whitt 1994), they argue that suicide and
homicide are "…two alternative channels in a single stream of
lethal violence." Further, they contend that suicide and homicide
rates are a function of two sets of causal mechanisms: forces of production
and forces of direction. Forces of production refer to social and cultural
factors that are responsible for the total amount of lethal violence,
as expressed in either suicide or homicide. Forces of direction refer
to cultural and structural factors that prompt members of society to direct
their violent drives to either suicide or homicide. A higher tendency
of external blame will result in a higher homicide rate relative to suicide
rate. Conversely, factors that increase the likelihood of internal attribution
of blame increase the risk of suicide relative to homicide.
The stream analogy proposed by Unnithan et al. was recently tested by
Batton's trend study (1999) in which nationwide homicide and suicide data
for most of the twentieth century were examined. Batton found that rates
of alcohol consumption, immigration, and divorce were related to external
attribution of blame that resulted in a higher tendency for violence to
be expressed as homicide. Although Batton also mentioned other factors,
such as economic deprivation, that were related to either forces of production
or direction, the empirical evidence cited in her study is not consistent
enough to draw a conclusion. Batton concluded that the stream analogy
proposed by Unnithan et al. was useful in explaining historical trends
in violence expressed as either suicide or homicide.
The stream analogy proposed by Unnithan et al. and tested by Batton leaves
several theoretical and empirical issues unanswered. First, the difference
between force of production and force of direction is clear conceptually,
but it assumes that both suicide and homicide result from the same destructive
social forces. Lethal violence, as expressed in either suicide or homicide,
is a theoretical construct that may possibly include other types of violent
behaviors or events. As Lane pointed out, accident rates 3
in the city of Philadelphia during the 19th century were intrinsically
related to a fundamental social change that also affected both suicide
and homicide rates. Thus, the construct that includes suicide and homicide
may be broader than lethal violence. Second, the distinction between force
of production and force of direction is not as clear empirically as claimed.
Take economic deprivation as an example. It was treated as a variable
measuring force of direction in Batton's study. However, it was treated
as force of production in Whitt's study that is part of the endeavor to
develop the integrated model proposed by Unnithan et al. The difference
between these two studies in how economic deprivation is used further
illustrates the conceptual ambiguity between forces of production and
direction. Third, measurement of force of direction is problematic. Batton's
approach in determining which specific factor accounts for the forces
of direction is problematic in that no predetermined criteria or model
were set to evaluate factors in her analysis. The researcher's subjective
interpretation determines which factors become the forces of production
and which factors become forces of direction. The attempt of Corzine et
al. in testing the force of direction is an interesting yet unsatisfactory
one. They used an unmeasured concept of southern culture in their study
to test whether the percentage of a state's population born in the south
can explain the force of direction. The results are not conclusive, besides
other methodological problems in their study. The main problem lies in
their unexamined assumption that southern culture, assumed to be the force
of direction, channels violent drive toward homicide.
The purpose of this study is to test the stream analogy proposed by Unnithan
et al. by using more comprehensive cross-sectional data, which is lacking
in previous studies. Specifically, this study will use county-level data
to test whether forces of production explain volume of lethal violence
and whether forces of direction explain type of lethal violence. Further,
unlike some previous studies both independent and dependent variables
will be selected based upon theoretical grounds and review of related
literature.
METHODOLOGY
Data
Suicide and homicide data were obtained from the Multiple Cause of Death
study conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS ).4
A three-year (1989-1991) average suicide rate and a three-year average
homicide rate are used in this study to minimize any possible single-year
random fluctuation for all dependent variables. Only counties with populations
larger than 100,000 persons in the 1990 census were included in this study,
because smaller counties often do not have enough or any suicide and/or
homicide data for a meaningful comparison.5
NCHS data also include legal interventions (deaths due to police shootings
and executions) as part of homicide counts. These cases were excluded
from all homicide counts in this study, because such deaths conceptually
do not fall into the category of violence according to the literature
discussed above. Beside the NCHS data, this study will use data from the
vital statistics and census data to adequately test the stream analogy.
Measurement
Suicide and Homicide rates: Age standardized suicide rate (ASR) will be
used in this study, and it is defined as follows:
Where, Dij are suicide deaths for age group (five-year age intervals)
i and residents of county j, Pij is the total population of age group
i in county j, so Sij is the age-specific suicide rate for age group i
in county j. Pis represents the proportion of people in that age group
in the standard population (Phillips 1997; also see Smith and Zahn 1999).
Age standardized homicide rate (AHR) will be calculated in the same fashion
as the one for suicide.
In this study, two dependent variables are used: a lethal violence rate
and a suicide/homicide ratio variable, both proposed and tested by previous
researchers (see for example Gold 1958; Unnithan et al. 1994). Lethal
violence rate refers to the combination of suicide and homicide rates
in a county. The suicide/homicide ratio variable is obtained by dividing
the suicide rate by the sum of the suicide and homicide rate. What this
variable measures is the proportion in which lethal violence will be expressed,
either as suicide or homicide. A higher suicide/homicide ratio reflects
the higher tendency that lethal violence will be manifested as suicide,
and vice versa.
Force of production is measured by the following county-level social indicators
of social deprivation: poverty, Gini index, teenage women with own children,
unemployment rate, infant mortality rate, and percentage of non-white
residents.
Absolute and relative deprivation reflects structural inequality that
has been linked to the increase of crime and other social ills (see for
example Currie 1985). Absolute and relative deprivation may also reflect
the degree of social disorganization in a community that generates deviant
behaviors, including both suicide and homicide (Stark 1987; Goode 1996).
In this study, the percentage of households living below poverty line
in a county is used to measure absolute deprivation. Relative deprivation
will be measured by a Gini coefficient that reflects the extent of income
inequality in a community. The Gini coefficient is computed by the following
formula:
|
|
(3) |
|
Where,
|
|
Xi = 1/N,
Yi = cumulative percentage of income by census tract, and
D Xi = Xi - Xi-1
|
|
Previous studies have shown that percentage of teen mother in a community
is associated with a higher degree of normlessness and deprivation (Wilson
1996). This study will include this variable as one indicator of forces
of production.
Jobs impose discipline and regularity for individuals and subsequently
maintain community stability (Wilson 1996). The degree of social disorder
and deprivation will rise when jobs disappear. This study will use unemployment
rate to measure economic deprivation.
Infant mortality rate is closely linked to economic inequality. A higher
degree of infant mortality rate also shows a higher tendency of experiencing
traumatic and negative life events, which is what Unnithan et al. (1994)
defined as an element of forces of production.
Previous studies have shown that percentage of non-white residents is
strongly associated with poverty rate and other social deprivation indicators.
This variable will be included to measure forces of production as it covers
the racial dimension of social deprivation.
Force of direction is measured by the following county-level social indicators
of attribution: the percentage of immigrants, racial segregation, divorce
rate, the percentage of college educated residents, and the percentage
of professional work force.
Immigration can pose a threat to receiving communities in several aspects
including threat to job security, community norms and values, as well
as political power structure. Therefore, a higher level of immigration
is associated with a stronger tendency to direct aggression toward others.
In this study, the level of immigration is measured by the percentage
of county residents who are immigrants.
Racial residential segregation is found to generate racial antagonism
in which different racial and ethnic groups hold hostile views toward
one another (see for example Massey and Denton 1993). Racial antagonism
also fosters a group sentiment in which others are to be blamed for one's
misfortune (Henry and Short 1954; Unnithan et al. 1994). It is reasonable
to suggest that a higher degree of racial residential segregation is associated
with a stronger tendency to direct aggression toward others, i.e., a lower
coefficient in the suicide/homicide ratio variable. The index (D) of racial
residential segregation (the index of dissimilarity) is computed by the
following formula:
|
|
(4) |
|
Where,
|
|
Xi = the percentage of the white population living in a given
census tract in the research county;
Yi = the percentage of the non-white population living in a given
census tract in the research county;
k = the number of census tracts in the area.
|
|
Batton's (1999) test of the stream analogy initially used divorce rate
as a measure of force of production, but found that divorce rate also
functioned as force of direction in her analysis. Batton concluded that
a higher divorce rate can be associated with a higher degree of self-blame,
i.e., internal attribution, thus a higher suicide/homicide ratio.
According to the reviewed literature, work and education are two primary
institutions where the socialization process channels frustration into
either suicide or homicide. The following county-level measures of socialization
are included to test this hypothesis: percentage of county residents who
are college educated and percentage of county residents who are professional
workers. A higher percentage of college-educated residents and professional
workers is associated with a higher degree of internal attribution.
Finally, county population and region will be treated as two control variables.
Specifically, the natural log transformation of county population will
be used instead of the actual size in the county population which has
a positively skewed distribution. A south-non-south 6
dichotomized variable will be used to measure region.
Statistics
In addition to describing the results, ordinary least square (OLS) regression
will be employed in the data analysis because all variables used in this
study are interval in nature (Agresti and Finlay 1986). In any ecological
study such as the present one, multicollinearity will become a problem
for the analysis, as many variables will be highly correlated. Procedures
recommended by researchers with expertise in dealing with the multicollinearity
problems will be followed (see for example Allison 1999; Chatterjee and
Price 1991). Specifically, the variance inflation factor (VIF) coefficient
will be used to select variables to be included in the regression analysis.
Any variable that generates a VIF coefficient higher than 2.5 will be
excluded from the model (Allison 1999).
FINDINGS
Means, standard deviations, and correlation matrix for all variables are
presented in Table 1. It is clear that some independent and control variables
are much more strongly associated with both lethal violence and suicide/homicide
ratio than others. For example, poverty rate is positively and strongly
associated with lethal violence, but negatively associated with the suicide/homicide
ratio variable. Region, measured as south vs. non-south, shows just the
opposite pattern with both lethal violence and suicide/homicide ratio
variable. Results from the bi-variate analysis are interesting but do
not directly address the main concern of this study.
Click to view Table
1
Table 2 displays regression results from the first model that estimates
the impact of various indicators of force of production on lethal violence.
Overall, all indicators of force of production are positively related
to the volume of lethal violence, a combined product of suicide and homicide
rates. Among the independent variables, infant mortality rate is the strongest
predictor; counties that have higher infant mortality rates tend to have
higher levels of lethal violence. In the model including both independent
and control variables, it is the natural log of county population, treated
as a control variable, that has the strongest impact on volume of lethal
violence. Larger counties tend to have a higher level of lethal violence.
The model7 explains 50.9 percent of the
variance in the dependent variable. In essence, the model derived from
the stream analogy is supported by the regression results in that the
sheer volume of lethal violence is explained by various indicators of
force of production.8
Click to view Table
2
Table 3 shows regression results that tests the stream analogy model
that emphasizes the impact of force of direction, which is responsible
for whether lethal violence will be expressed as either suicide or homicide.
The model explains 76 percent of the variance in the dependent variable:
suicide/homicide ratio. The strongest predictor is the percentage of non-white
residents in a county: counties that have higher percentage of non-white
residents tend to have a lower suicide and homicide ratio. In other words,
counties that have higher non-white residents tend to express lethal violence
in the form of homicide. Other characteristics of counties that express
lethal violence as homicide include: higher unemployment rates, higher
degree of income inequality, southern counties, larger counties, and higher
degree of racial segregation.
Click to view Table
3
Of the five indicators conceptualized as measures of force of direction,
only the degree of racial segregation was found to have a moderate impact
on suicide/homicide ratio. More significantly, the direction of correlation
is consistent with what the stream analogy predicts. Counties that have
a higher level of racial segregation, i.e. a higher degree of racial antagonism,
tend to express lethal violence as homicide.
The strong and significant impact of the region variable, coded as south-vs-non-south,
on the suicide/homicide ratio variable suggests that region may have an
interactive effect. To examine the interactive effect, separate regression
analysis was conducted for southern and non-southern counties. Table 4
displays the results of regression analysis employing indicators of force
of production and direction9 by region.
Table 4 shows that both R-square for southern and non-southern counties
increase, which indicate that the dependent variable is better explained
when region is held constant in the analysis. Results in Table 4 also
demonstrate that in southern counties it is the percentage of college-educated
residents, among indicators of force of direction that has the only significant
impact on the suicide/homicide ratio variable. Southern counties that
have higher percentage of college-educated residents tend to have a higher
tendency to express lethal violence in the form of suicide. This finding
is consistent with the stream analogy. Among non-southern counties, two
indicators of force of direction were found to have significant impact
on suicide/homicide ratio. Index of segregation is associated with a higher
tendency of expressing lethal violence in the form of homicide, and so
is the percentage of immigrants in the counties. Counties that have a
higher degree of segregation and immigration tend to express lethal violence
as homicide. This finding is also consistent with the stream analogy.
Click to view Table
4
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
This study is limited by the analysis of only large counties in the US.
Specifically, only counties larger than 100,000 persons in the 1990's
census were included in the analysis. Therefore, findings from this study
cannot be inferred to the entire United States, which includes many smaller
counties. This study is also limited by measurement of cultural variables
at the county level. Many cultural variables, such as membership of fundamentalist
churches that was shown to affect the direction of attribution, are not
available at the county level (Grasmick and McGill 1994). Inclusion of
these cultural variables may shed new light on what specific cultural
components constitute forces of direction.
Despite these above-mentioned limitations, results from the regression
analysis support the notion that forces of production explain the volume
of lethal violence. However, regression results in this study show moderate
support for the most critical aspects of the stream analogy in that there
is weak evidence to show that only one indicator of forces of direction,
racial segregation, explains whether violence will be expressed as suicide
or homicide. Further, according to the stream analogy proposed by Unnithan
et al., forces of direction refers to both cultural and structural factors
that are responsible for whether lethal violence will be expressed as
either homicide or suicide. No cultural indicator of the force of direction
was found to have a significant impact on how violence is expressed.
Among all indicators of forces of production, infant mortality rate has
the most impact on lethal violence; counties with a higher infant mortality
rate are more likely to have a higher level of lethal violence. In other
words, a community's susceptibility to murder and suicide is strongly
linked to its inability to prevent infant mortality, which is a result
of poverty (Gortmaker 1979; also see Saegert et al. 2001). This finding
points to a clear direction for public policy on violence prevention.
Despite recent efforts on the part of some public health officials, researchers,
and community activists (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1994;
Curtis 1998; Oliver 2000), the nation's policy toward homicide in particular
and crime in general emphasizes a solution through the criminal justice
system. That is, homicide is treated narrowly as a crime issue. Policy
makers in the US need to readjust violence prevention strategies toward
incorporating measures that simultaneously address the issue of alleviating
poverty, which is directly linked to infant mortality, suicide, and homicide
in a community.
Findings in this study show that region has an interesting impact on how
lethal violence is expressed. When separate regression analysis was performed,
the results indicate that in southern counties one indicator of forces
of direction, the percentage of college-educated residents, was positively
correlated with the suicide/homicide ratio variable. Southern counties
that have a higher percentage of college-educated residents tend to express
lethal violence as suicide. This finding is consistent with the stream
analogy in that education serves as a mechanism in which aggression/frustration
is suppressed to foster self-autonomy, which is essential in modern higher
educational environment. No such pattern was found among non-southern
counties where two structural indicators of force of direction were found
to affect how violence is expressed. Region apparently interacts with
forces of direction, which accounts for whether violence will be channeled
into suicide or homicide.
That there exists a southern subculture of violence is not a new idea
(Corzine et al. 1999). This concept has been applied to explain higher
levels of homicide in the southern region. Table 2 shows that southern
counties have a higher level of lethal violence and Table 3 shows those
southern counties tend to express lethal violence as homicide compared
to non-southern counties. The only exception to this pattern is that southern
counties that have a higher percentage of college-educated residents tend
to express lethal violence as suicide as opposed to homicide. The following
explanation of this particular finding is offered. College education serves
as a secular force that neutralizes a subculture of violence, which was
found to be associated with high homicide rates in the south (see Corzine
et al. 1999). As a result, norms in southern counties with a higher percentage
of college educated residents are less likely influenced by a subculture
that endorses violence as a way to resolve interpersonal conflict than
they are influenced by pragmatic training in higher education that emphasizes
self-autonomy. In other words, a southern subculture of violence is being
mitigated by a higher level of education, only to have such violent tendencies
be expressed in the form of suicide. It is also reasonable to argue that
lacking a subculture of violence, it is two structural factors, the degree
of immigration and racial segregation, that are significantly related
to the suicide/homicide ratio variable in non-southern counties.
The results of this study indicate that both suicide and homicide may
share more similar social causes than previously conceived. Human violence,
broadly conceptualized, is rooted in structural and cultural factors that
generate the sheer volume of violence (Pampel and Williamson 2001; Singh
and Unnithan 1999). The results of this study also suggest that whether
human violence will be expressed in the form of suicide or homicide is
predicated upon both cultural and structural factors as the stream analogy
contends. Findings from this study thus reveal a need for future study
that examines both suicide and homicide under the same theoretical and
empirical framework. Specifically, more work is needed to clarify the
distinction between forces of production and forces of direction conceptually.
It may be fruitful to specify forces of direction as cultural factors,
such as what Messner and Rosenfeld (2001) suggested in their work on crime
and the American Dream. It is about how a community, large or small, justifies
its actions, in this case whether suicide or homicide is a chosen solution
to resolve interpersonal conflicts and frustration. Specifically, Messner
and Rosenfeld argue that a cluster of uniquely American values, such as
the notion of individualistic achievement and "fetishism of money,"
heightens the anomic pressure that subsequently raises the severity and
extent of crime problems in American society. If the forces of direction
are about components of a culture in each community, then researchers
can isolate specific cultural contents among different levels of analysis
to account for why certain communities/states/countries tend to express
lethal violence in the form of either suicide or homicide. Also, empirical
tests should be conducted to validate such a conceptual distinction. A
structural equation model holds great potential for distinguishing these
two latent variables. Finally, besides using cross-sectional data, future
studies should also employ a longitudinal design that can answer the research
question from a historical viewpoint (See for example, Batton 1999; Vollum
and Titterington 2001). Overall, the stream analogy is a promising theoretical
framework to study human violence, although more work is needed to refine
its core concepts and measurements.
NOTES
1 See Unnithan et al. (1994) for a detailed discussion of the European
intellectual endeavor of treating both suicide and homicide as a same
phenomenon. back
2 Critics of the anomie perspective such as Messner
and Rosenfeld (2001) argued that the concept of anomie cannot fully account
for the high volume of homicide, especially high rate of gun related homicide
in the US as compared to other industrialized societies. Nor can the anomie
theory fully explain more specific type of homicide, such as intimate
homicide. back
3 Accidents were not analyzed in this study,
because that is not how lethal violence was conceptualized by Unnithan
et al. and tested by the author in this paper.back
4 For a detailed discussion regarding various
sources of homicide data, see Riedel (1999).back
5 This is especially crucial when calculating
the suicide/homicide ratio variable with a zero suicide and/or homicide
count.back
6 Southern counties are from the following states:
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi,
North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia,
and West Virginia.back
7 Poverty (VIF = 5.45) was excluded from the
regression analysis because of a multicollinearity problem.back
8 A negative binomial regression was also applied
to the same data set because of over-dispersion in the lethal violent
rates among 458 large counties. All but one indicator, the percentage
of non-white residents, of forces of production were significant predictors
of lethal violence rate. The level of significance of percentage non-white
is .07, very near the .05 threshold. In other words, the negative binomial
regression technique produces very similar outcomes as the OLS results.
Results of the negative binomial regression are available upon request.back
9 Unemployment rate (VIF = 4.97) was excluded
from the regression analysis because of a multicollinearity problem.back
REFERENCES
Adler, Jeffrey. 1999. ""If We Can't Live in Peace, We Might
as Well Die": Homicide-Suicide in Chicago, 1875-1910." Journal
of Urban History 26(1): 3-21.
Agresti, Alan, and Barbara Finlay. 1986. Statistical Methods for the
Social Sciences. Dellen Publishing, Riverside, NJ.
Allison, Paul. 1999. Multiple Regression: A Primer. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Pine Forge.
Baller, Robert, Luc Anselin, Steven Messner, Glenn Deane, and Darnell
Hawkins. 2001. "Structural Covariates of US County Homicide Rates:
Incorporating Spatial Effects." Criminology 39(3): 561-590.
Batton, Candice. 1999. The Stream Analogy: A Historical Study of Lethal
Violence Rates from the Perspective of the Integrated Homicide-suicide
Model. Dissertation. Nashville: Vanderbilt University.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 1994. "Homicide among
15-19 Year Old Males - United States, 1963-1991." Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report 43(40), 725-27.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 1998. Monthly Vital Statistics
Report, Vol. 48, No. 11.
Chatterjee, Samprit, and Bertram Price. 1991. Regression Analysis
by Example. New York: Wiley-Interscience.
Corzine, Jay, Lin Huff-Corzine, and Hugh P. Whitt. 1999. "Cultural
and Subcultural Theories of Homicide." Pp. 42-57 in Homicide:
A Sourcebook of Social Research, edited by Dwayne Smith and Margaret
Zahn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Currie, Elliott. 1985. Confronting Crime. New York: Pantheon.
Curtis, Richard. 1998. "The Improbable Transformation of Inner-city
Neighborhoods: Crime, Violence, Drugs, and Youth in the 1990s." Journal
of Criminal Law and Criminology 88 (4):1233-76.
Durkheim, Emile. 1951. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Translated
by John. Spaulding. New York: Free Press.
Gold, Martin. 1958. "Suicide, Homicide, and the Socialization of
Aggression." American Journal of Sociology 63: 651-61.
Goode, Erich. 1996. Social Deviance. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Gortmaker, Steven. "Poverty and Infant Mortality in the United States."
American Sociological Review, 1979, 44, 2: 280-297.
Grasmick, Harold and Anne McGill. 1994. "Religion, Attribution Style,
and Punitiveness toward Juvenile Offenders." Criminology,
32 (1): 23-46.
Henry, Andrew, and James Short Jr. 1954. Suicide and Homicide: Some
Economic, Sociological and Psychological Aspects of Aggression. Glencoe,
IL: The Free Press.
Lane, Roger. 1979. Violent Death in the City. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Lester, David. 1994. Patterns of Suicide and Homicide in America.
Commack, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Kaplan, Mark, and Olga Geling. 1998. "Firearm Suicides and Homicides
in the United States: Regional Variations and Patterns of Gun Ownership."
Social Science and Medicine 46 (9):1227-33.
Massey, Douglas, and Nancy Denton. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation
and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press.
McKenna, Caroline, Michael Kellerher, and Paul Corcoran. 1997. "Suicide,
Homicide and Crime in Ireland: What Are the Relationships?" Archives
of Suicide Research 3: 53-64.
Messner, Steven, and Richard Rosenfeld. 2001. Crime and the American
Dream. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Oliver, William, 2000. "The Public Health and Social Consequences
of Black Male Violence." Journal of African American Men 5
(2), 71-92.
Phillips, Julie. 1997. "Variation in African-American Homicide Rates:
An Assessment of Potential Explanations." Criminology 35(4):527-559.
Riedel, Mark, 1999. "Sources of Homicide Data: A Review and Comparison."
Pp. 75-95 in Homicide: A Sourcebook of Social Research, edited
by Dwayne Smith and Margaret Zahn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Saegert, Susan, J. Phillip Thompson, and Mark R. Warren. 2001. Social
Capital and Poor Communities. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Singh, Raghu, and Prabha Unnithan. 1999. "Cultural Cues for Lethal
Violence against Women among Asian Indians in the United States."
Violence Against Women 5(6): 641-653.
Smith, Dwayne, and Margaret Zahn. 1999. Homicide: A Sourcebook of
Social Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Stark, Rodney. "Deviant Places: A Theory of the Ecology of Crime."
Criminology, 25, 4: 893-909.
Unnithan, Prabha, Jay Corzine, Lin Huff-Corzine, and Hugh Whitt. 1994.
The Currents of Lethal Violence: An Integrated Model of Suicide and
Homicide. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press.
U.S. Department of Justice. 1998. Uniform Crime Reports. Federal
Bureau of Investigation. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
Vollum, Scott, and Victoria Brewer Titterington. 2001. "Gender, Attributional
Styles, and Direction of Lethal Violence." Homicide Studies 5:
227-52.
Whitt, Hugh. 1994. "Old theories never die." Pp: 7-34 in The
Currents of Lethal Violence: An Integrated Model of Suicide and Homicide.
Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press.
Wilson. William Julius. 1996. When Work Disappears. New York:
Knopf.
|
