Ebook: Unequal Crime Decline: Theorizing Race, Urban Inequality, and Criminal Violence

"[Parker's] analysis is not only a thorough review of the debate on the link between violent crime and unemployment; it is an exploration into the complex interwining between ethnicity, gender, population composition and political economy in violent crime...a hugely rewarding read.---British Journal of Criminology

"The crime decline that began in the early 1990s and ran for more than a decade is the largest sustained drop rates ever recorded in the United States---and yet this remarkable event has gone largely unheralded. Parker illuminates this unexplored terrain by shining a light on the unevenness of the decline across key subgroups defined especially by race, gender and class. Her book is required reading for anyone interested in the make up of this fascinating piece of criminology history."---Gary Lafree, author of Losing Legitimacy: Street Crime and the Decline of Social Institutions in America

"Parker's book is a significant achievement, merging sophisticated quantitatives techniques and analysis with sociological insights about structural changes in our cities that also affect urban crime rates. This is a provocative and stimulating book which should prompt criminologists to more carefully deconstruct crime patterns and trends by race and gender."

Crime in most urban areas fell during the 1990s. While the decline has been well-documented, few scholars have analyzed which groups have most benefited from the crime decline and which are still on the frontlines of violence---and why that might be. In Unequal Crime Decline, Karen F. Parker presents a structural and theoretical analysis of the various factors that affect the crime decline. Looking particularly at the past three decades and the shifts that have taken place, Parker offers original insight into which trends have declined and why. Unequal Crime Decline is a comprehensive and theoretically sophisticated look at the relationship among race, urban inequality, and violence in the years leading up to and following America's landmark crime drop.