DOI: 10.3886/icpsr36728.v1
title: Religion and Violence by Race and Ethnicity, United States Counties, 2006-2014
title: Version 1

description: These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.
To focus on the socio-cultural (including religious) contextual features that impact violent offending, victimization, and lethal self-harm, the researchers compiled county-level data on suicides, homicides, robbery, assault, religious adherence and demographic characteristics. The collection includes a data file with 62 variables and 3,140 cases in both SPSS and Stata formats. The file Religion_and_Violence_by_Race_Ethnicity__US_Counties__2010.sav is the SPSS version and Religion_and_Violence_by_Race_Ethnicity__US_Counties__2010.dta is the Stata version.
description: The purpose of the project was to construct a nation-wide  database in order to examine the contextual correlates of race/ethnic-specific violence, in particular the macro-social and religious contextual correlates of Latino and Asian homicide and suicide as they compare to those of other racial and ethnic groups.
description: The researchers conducted a county-level ecological study. Using descriptive statistics they highlighted features of counties with at least 10,000 Whites (n=2,288), 10,000 Hispanics/Latinos (n=443) and  10,000 Asians (n=211), three groups of counties which they named "White,"
"Hispanic/Latino," and "Asian" counties. The researchers focused on differences in suicide and homicide across the three county groups, as well as differences in religious  adherence and other county characteristics. The researchers also used negative binomial regression models to examine the association of homicides and suicides with adherence to each of three religious traditions: evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant and Catholic. For each county group, they regressed homicides and suicides (White homicides and suicides in the White counties,  Hispanic/Latino homicides and suicides in the Hispanic/Latino counties and Asian homicides and suicides in the Asian counties) on religious adherence to the three traditions, geographic mobility, racial/ethnic diversity, an index of socioeconomic disadvantage and other county characteristics.
description: Geographic identification: Census region and state and county names and FIPS codes (6 variables).


Homicide and suicide: Number of homicides and suicides by race and Hispanic/Latino origin (10 variables).


Robbery and assault: Number of reported robberies and aggravated assaults per 100,000 persons (2 variables).


Religion: Percentage of total population that are religious adherents, evangelical Protestant adherents, mainline Protestant adherents, Black Protestant adherents, Catholic adherents, and other religious adherents (6 variables).


Demographic characteristics: Population density, percentage of population in rural areas and the following population attributes broken down by race and Hispanic/Latino origin: population size, nativity, English language speaking proficiency, poverty, unemployment, female family headship with children under 18, educational attainment and one-year geographic mobility (38 variables).
description: Presence of Common Scales: 
					None
description: Response Rates: 
					Not applicable
description: Datasets: 
					
						DS1: Dataset
description: All persons, suicides, homicides and known and cleared robberies and assaults in the United States in the study time period.
				   		Smallest Geographic Unit: county
description: The data file has a record for every county and county equivalent in the United States, except Kalawao County, Hawaii, Loving County, Texas and King County, Texas.