Does Urban Crime Increase When or Where Racial Residential Segregation Research Paper

Does Urban Crime Increase When or Where Racial Residential Segregation Exist - Research Paper Example Racial residential segregation has been a cause of grave concern for policymakers and researchers alike, primarily because of its association with racial inequality and disparity. After undertaking a comparative analysis and assessment of data from 1980, 1990 and 2000, the research paper validates the findings of prior literature by stating that there exists a strong correlation between racial residential segregation and urban crime, additionally, the paper also assesses trends in racial residential segregation and crime for the period of 1980 to 2000. Types of crime such as homicide, assault, theft and robbery are also assessed with regards to their relation with racial segregation. In conclusion the literature cited in the paper is evaluated and the causes behind the positive correlation between racial segregation and urban crime such as poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, the role of dominant subcultures and unavailability of welfare services to black communities and neighborhoods are also discussed. 1. Introduction An assessment of the crime rates in America from the latter half of the 1980s to the early years of the 1990s is reflective of a decline in crime in the United States (Blumstein and Wallman 1) that is also observable from the statistics that have been collected in the past decade (Bjerk 2). Regardless of these considerations however, violence and crime in America has been a topic of extensive public debate and a highly significant issue because of the critical role that it plays in shaping the face of crime in America. According to the data provided in the Handbook of Crime the existence of factors related to race and racial determinants are eminent in the statistics that have been collected by official agencies across the United States, these statistics have been able to uncover two important observations with regards to crime and race which state that the crime rates for the African American population are reportedly higher in comparison with me mbers of the population that are white, while, victimization reports have also stated a greater percentage of African Americans victims of crime (Ellis, Beaver and Wright 224). Several scholars and researchers have presented a range of theoretical postulations and explanations behind the consistent observations which point towards a substantial divide in the experience of crime shared by members of various racial groups. The scope of this paper however, is directed towards examining the role of racial residential segregation on the topic of race and crime. According to Beaulieu and Continelli, the adverse impact of racial residential segregation on black communities has been widely documented in several researches and literature, however, a hypothesis that has not been tested thus far suggests whether the effects of racial residential segregation are reversed with regards to white communities (488). This paper aims to address the question of urban crime and racial residential segreg ation by undertaking necessary research and evaluations of empirical data to determine whether urban crime increases when or where racial segregation exists. For the purposes of attending to the topic under research in an objective, effective and extensive manner, the paper utilizes the literature presented by Ellis, Beaver and