Longitudinal and Contextual Analyses of Violent Crime in the European Union
Patricia L. McCall, Sociology, North Carolina State University
Research Grant, 2009, 2010
The purpose of this research is to explore the extent to which retrenchment in welfare support is related to homicide trends across European countries between 1994 and 2010. Using a longitudinal decomposition design that allows for stronger causal inferences compared to typical cross-sectional designs, we examine these potential linkages between social support spending and homicide with data collected from a heterogeneous sample of European nations, including twenty Western nations and nine less frequently analyzed East-Central nations, during recent years in which European nations generally witnessed substantial changes in homicide rates as well as both economic prosperity and fiscal crisis. Results suggest that even incremental, short-term changes in welfare support spending are associated with short-term reductions in homicide specifically, impacting homicide rates within two to three years for this sample of European nations.
Results suggest that even incremental, short-term changes in welfare support spending are associated with short-term reductions in homicide.