[jcims]

It could be a bias of mine, but if averaged out over an entire county I don't think these are mutually exclusive. I'm talking about the 'rough parts of town' that are typically dominated by a minority population.

Try this:

Go find a crime map site, pick a big city and show homicides over the last year.

Then go to the racial dot map and see how it compares to the census of that locale.

http://demographics.virginia.edu/DotMap/

[its_the_future]

Are you sure socioeconomic status is not a better fit and that race is not just a proxy for it?

[jcims]

I’m not saying it’s specific races or some sneaky proxy for them, but the fact that there are different races at all likly plays some role. For example, I firmly believe if we had opposites millenia with regard to race these same patterns would emerge.

Now I have lost track of the exact scope of ‘socioeconomic status’, but i don’t think that being poor/uneducated/financially insecure explains it all either. West Virginia is the epitome of low socioeconomic status, but violent crime is relatively low.

My basic thinking is that these communities do not have a healthy, trusting relationship with law enforcement. The cause for that is complex of course, but the net effect ties back to the OP. If law enforcement isn’t a reliable or trusted resource, a community will fall back to vigilante/mob justice. Without the resources of a court and prison system to remove people from a community, that justice is going to come in the form of violence. This of course creates a negative feedback loop with law enforcement, exacerbating the problem.

On the upside, this problem might actually be easier to solve.

[duncan-donuts]

Idk, I’m kind of with you on this. I grew up in an area that was racially diverse and also shared a distrust of the police and legal system. Minorities in the United States are being shot and killed by police at an alarming rate. I’m not convinced that every urban community holistically decides they must take justice into their own hands, but I, anecdotally, grew up in a place where people do take matters into their own hands. Again, I’m not saying you’re onto something here, but I do know many people who would rather fight in the streets over fight in a court room.

[jcims]

I’m not very bright socially so it’s entirely likely I’m wrong.

With that, you don’t need to centrally ‘decide’ anything. I think folks would generally observe patterns and come to similar conclusions. Honestly it’s probably the same way the ‘blue code’ develops...theres no meeting, just patterns. It’s not an absolute model, police do get called (and fired) all the time despite this.

Doesn’t really matter what i think at the end of the day and im grossly oversimplifying most of it, but it is a handy framework that explains a lot for me.

[codyb]

I very much think socioeconomic status is more likely a better fit.

I have a feeling if you did the same test but instead of “crime” you did “wealth percentile” you’d probably end up with the same results in the United States though unfortunately.

Not a lot of well off minority neighborhoods throughout the country and the wealth disparity even with all the poor white people is very real.

[thaumasiotes]

> I very much think socioeconomic status is more likely a better fit.

Believe it or not, this exact question has been studied pretty intensively for decades.

The predictive value of race is much higher than the predictive value of socioeconomic status.

[floe]

Ah, then you should be able to provide some sources.

[nkurz]

I think this is an excellent analysis with sources: https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2015/11/16/racial-differe...

His conclusion is that on a county-by-county level in the US, race is the strongest predictor of homicide rates, with rates of single-motherhood being next strongest. Poverty is a reasonable predictor, but weaker than these and several others.

I read this closely a couple years ago, but only skimmed it now to remind myself of the conclusions. I'd be interested to hear peoples' thoughts on whether his statistical techniques are appropriately applied. I recall it was was convincing to me at the time.