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Description & Citation--Study No. 3872

Bibliographic Description

ICPSR Study No.:3872
 
Persistent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03872
 
Title:Impact of Immigration on Ethnic-Specific Violence in Miami, Florida, 1997
 
Principal Investigator(s):Ramiro Jr. Martinez, Florida International University
 
Funding Agency:United States Department of Justice. National Institute of Justice
 
Grant Number:2001-IJ-CX-0012
 
Bibliographic Citation:Martinez, Ramiro, Jr. IMPACT OF IMMIGRATION ON ETHNIC- SPECIFIC VIOLENCE IN MIAMI, FLORIDA, 1997 [Computer file]. ICPSR version. North Miami, FL: Florida International University [producer], 2003. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2004. doi:10.3886/ICPSR03872
 

Scope of Study

Summary:Does the rate of violent victimization differ across race and ethnic groups? In an effort to answer this question, this study sought to examine the violent victimization rate and the factors influencing ethnic-specific rates of violence in the city of Miami. Administrative data were obtained from the United States Bureau of the Census and the Miami Police Department Research Unit. For the groups of people identified as Afro Americans, Latinos, and Haitians, the numbers who were victims of aggravated assault and robbery in 1997 are included along with the assault and robbery rates for each group. The remaining variables are the percent of female-headed households, percent below poverty line, percent of young males out of the labor force and unemployed, residential instability, vacant and household instability, and the percent of 1980-1990 immigrants.
 
Subject Term(s):aggravated assault, census tract level, crime rates, ethnicity, immigration, race, robbery, victimization, violent crime
 
Smallest Geographic Unit:census tract
 
Geographic Coverage:Florida, Miami, United States
 
Time Period:1997
 
Date(s) of Collection:2001
 
Unit of Observation:census tract
 
Universe:The 70 census tracts in the city of Miami, Florida.
 
Data Type:administrative records data
 
Data Collection Notes:The user guide and codebook are provided by ICPSR as Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.
 

Methodology

Purpose of the Study:Does the rate of violent victimization differ across race and ethnic groups? Researchers of urban social problems continue to struggle with this question. The racial and ethnic composition of urban America has changed as a result in large part of increased immigration over the past 20 years, requiring researchers to acknowledge the growth of Latino, Asian, and Afro-Caribbean neighborhoods--many of which are in high crime and high poverty areas. Despite the growth of studies on race and violence over the past two decades that have examined this linkage at the national, metropolitan, and city levels, this issue remains largely overlooked at the neighborhood level. Many studies of Black or White violence are no longer reflections of the nature of racial and ethnic population compositions in many urban communities. The contextual factors that shape neighborhood-level violence have become important to identify since these influences might vary when accounting for racial and ethnic differences in violent crime, even within a single city. This study examined the violent victimization rate and the factors influencing ethnic-specific rates of violence for armed robbery and aggravated assault in the city of Miami. The objective was to better inform analyses of violent crime by outlining the basic contours of race/ethnicity (Latino, African American,and Haitian) in a primarily immigrant city by focusing on serious reported non-lethal violence.
 
Study Design:The primary unit of observation for this study was the census tract, or more specifically, the 70 census tracts in the city of Miami that are comprised of 500 or more residents. Census tracts were used as neighborhood proxies because research has shown they are the best unit of analysis below the city level to study the race and violence connection. The minimum population requirement was imposed to help stabilize rates of violence crime and avoid the inclusion of small islands in Biscayne Bay with few residents or containing upscale high-rise hotels or condominiums. Administrative records data were obtained from the United States Bureau of the Census, which provided the 1990 census tract data. These data provide detailed demographic information such as the number of residents, the percentage of tract population living below the poverty level, racial and ethnic composition, and a host of other information. The data for all reported robberies and aggravated assaults for 1997 was obtained from the city of Miami Police Department Research Unit. The address for each incident and victim race, surname, age, and gender were provided in a raw data file, geocoded into the census tract in which they occurred, aggregated to the tract level, and merged with the census tract information.
 
Sample:The city of Miami was purposively chosen as the city most suited for this study. Researchers chose Miami because it provided an excellent opportunity to examine the race/ethnicity and violence linkage in a high violence city with a racially and ethnically diverse population and a large immigrant population.
 
Data Source:Data were collected from the United States Bureau of Census and the Miami Police Department Research Unit.
 
Description of Variables:For the groups of people identified as Afro Americans, Latinos, and Haitians, the number who were victims of aggravated assault and robbery in 1997 are included along with the assault and robbery rates for each group. The remaining variables are the percent of female-headed households, percent below poverty line, percent of young males out of the labor force and unemployed, residential instability, vacant and household instability, and the percent of 1980-1990 immigrants.
 
Response Rates:Not applicable.
 
Presence of Common Scales:None.
 

Access and Availability

Note:A list of the data formats available for this study can be found in the summary of holdings. Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.
 
Original ICPSR Release:2004-02-27
 
Version History:The last update of this study occurred on 2005-11-04.
 
  2005-11-04 - On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable, and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to reflect these additions.
 
Dataset(s):
  • DS1: Impact of Immigration on Ethnic-Specific Violence in Miami, Florida, 1997
 

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