Homicide A Sociological Explanation

by Beeghley, Leonard

• ISBN13: 9780847694723
• ISBN10: 0847694720
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-05-07
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

Echoing Durkheim's Suicide, this book focuses on one important phenomenon to explain larger currents in American society. Leonard Beeghley examines the historical and cross-national dimensions of homicides and evaluates previous attempts to explain it. He finds the sources of America's murder rate in the greater availability of guns, the expansion of illegal drug markets, greater racial discrimination, more exposure to violence, and sharper economic inequalities. He deftly blends the evidence related to each of these factors into a well-reasoned sociological analysis of the nature of American society.

Author Biography

Leonard Beeghley is professor of sociology at the University of Florida

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Homicide as a Routine Event	1	(18)
We Have a Problem	2	(5)
Some Consequences of Homicide	7	(5)
Sociology and Homicide	12	(2)
Modernity and Homicide	14	(3)
Notes	17	(2)
How to Understand Homicide	19	(22)
Cross-National and Historical Dimensions of Homicide	21	(2)
Levels of Analysis and Homicide	23	(10)
Social Psychological Explanations of Homicide	24	(4)
Structural Explanations of Homicide	28	(5)
Explaining the Homicide Rate	33	(4)
The Dilemma of Change	37	(1)
Notes	38	(3)
Homicide in Cross-National and Historical Perspective	41	(38)
A Short History of Homicide in Europe	42	(4)
Cross-National Homicide Rates Today	46	(3)
Homicide in the United States from Colonial Times to 1900	49	(11)
Homicide in the United States from 1900 to the Present	60	(5)
Two Variants of Homicide in the United States	65	(4)
Homicide and Region	65	(5)
Homicide and Race	70
Modernity, Social Class, and Homicide	69	(5)
Notes	74	(5)
The American Dream and Homicide: A Critique	79	(24)
The Thesis and Its Empirical Basis	81	(3)
An Institutional-Anomie Explanation of Serious Crime	84	(7)
Some Critical Comments	91	(5)
Anomie, Modernity, and Homicide	96	(3)
Building on the Messner/Rosenfeld Strategy	99	(2)
Notes	101	(2)
Social Structure and Homicide	103	(60)
The Greater Availability of Guns	107	(22)
Guns versus Other Weapons	108	(3)
A Brief History of Guns and Homicide in America	111	(5)
How Many Guns in America?	116	(4)
The Coincidence Hypothesis	120	(3)
Gun Availability and the Rate of Homicide	123	(5)
Conclusion	128	(1)
The Expansion of Illegal Drug Markets	129	(6)
Greater Racial and Ethnic Discrimination	135	(6)
Greater Exposure to Violence	141	(8)
The Mass Media	141	(3)
The Family	144	(2)
The Neighborhood	146	(1)
The Government	147	(2)
Greater Economic Inequality	149	(3)
Understanding Homicide	152	(4)
Notes	156	(7)
Is Change Possible?	163	(28)
Sociology and Social Change	166	(2)
Two Illustrations	168	(19)
Gun Availability	169	(12)
Illegal Drug Markets	181	(6)
Concluding Comments	187	(1)
Notes	188	(3)
References	191	(24)
Index	215	(10)
About the Author	225