Victim and offender race and the likelihood of weapon use: a test of racial animosity and racial threat theories

ABSTRACT

The historically complex relationship between Blacks and Whites is believed to play an important role in the way offenders select their victims in violent crimes. This study tests two theories that have been used to explain interracial crimes: racial animosity theory and racial threat theory. Using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) from 1992 through 2016, we conduct two analyses of the racial dyads of White and Black offenders and victims to examine the role racial characteristics play in interpersonal crimes. Multinomial logistic regression is used to first analyze the likelihood of weapon use before narrowing our analysis specifically to handguns use. The findings provide minimal support for both racial threat theory and racial animosity theory.

KEYWORDS:

• Race
• violence
• weapon use
• NCVS

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Matthew Caines

Matthew Caines, M.A., is a doctoral student in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Sam Houston State University. His research interests include white-collar crime, race and crime, and environmental justice.

Wyatt Brown

Wyatt Brown, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Sam Houston State University. His research interests include disparities in the criminal justice system and testing of criminological theories.