Retaliatory Homicide: Concentrated Disadvantage and Neighborhood Culture

Much of the research on violent crime is situated within an exclusively structural or subcultural framework. Some recent work, however, argues that these unidimensional approaches are inherently limited and that more attention needs to be given to the intersection of structural and cultural determinants of violence. The present study takes up this challenge by examining both structural and cultural inuences on one underexamined type of homicide: retaliatory killings. Using quantitative data to examine the socioeconomic correlates and ecological distribution of homicide in St. Louis, Missouri, and narrative accounts of homicide incidents, we Žnd that a certain type of homicide (what we call “cultural retaliatory homicide”) is more common in some neighborhoods than in others due to the combined effects of economic disadvantage, neighborhood cultural responses to disadvantage, and problematic policing. Problems confronting residents of these communities are often resolved informally—without calling the police—and neighborhood cultural codes support this type of problemsolving, even when the “solution” involves a retaliatory killing. The Žndings thus lend support to a more integrated structural-cultural perspective on violent crime in urban neighborhoods.