While many remained with their initial group assignments, several took advantage of this opportunity to participate in more than one group. The commentary on these cases is based on the experiences of focus groups organized around each case. This discussion will include a brief description of the substance and the data for each case, and the nature and direction of focus group questioning. In this respect, the groups performed well. The names of the group leaders who assembled the data and led the focus group sessions appear in parentheses.
Violent crime is a distressing reality for many in contemporary America.
This probability is spatially variant, however, for violent crimes exhibit a geographic distribution that is strikingly clustered. Inquiry into this geography of violent crime is obviously and significantly related to the research agenda examining the structures of disadvantage in American society. Insofar as criminal activity is concentrated in communities already afflicted by poverty and deprivation, understanding the geography of crime is central to this policy responses designed to improve the human capital stock of these disadvantaged communities. For a number of years, Professors Kohfeld and Sprague have been working closely with the St. Louis police department on a project involving homicides and other serious crimes. In the course of this collaboration, they have been given access to police crime reports roughly covering the past thirty years.