Using time-series techniques with national data for 1967-98, we model the effects on changes in age-race-specific arrest rates of changes in indicators of economic deprivation. A measure of child poverty is positively related to juvenile arrest rates for both races, whereas changing unemployment (lagged) yields a surprising negative effect on youth offending. Measures of intraracial income inequality are also associated with changes in juvenile arrest rates, but the effects differ by race. Between-race inequality is unrelated to changes in arrest rates for both races. Our general conclusion is that fluctuations in juvenile homicide offending over recent decades can be understood, at least in part, with reference to the macro-economic environment confronting young people and their families.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.