Poverty, murder, and respect: unlikely to be linked in UK

doi:10.1136/bmj.a911

Published 22 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a911
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a911

Letters

Killings among young people

Poverty, murder, and respect: unlikely to be linked in UK

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The first paragraph of Heath’s article raises a controversialissue—that homicides perpetrated by children and youngadults from poor UK families are due largely to lack of respectand a need to exact revenge.¹ I am not aware of any well regardedstudy that concurs with this perspective. To take just one example,a 2007 US Justice Department report on homicides determinedthat American blacks, undoubtedly among the poorest groups inthe United States, account for 13% of the US population butare victims of 15% of all non-fatal violent attacks and nearlyhalf of all homicides.² Also, 93% of all black victims weremurdered by black offenders. Do these trends imply that theblacks perpetrating homicides in America perceive fellow (poor)blacks as disrespectful, and are killing them to exact revenge?

Most studies concede that the manner in which economic inequalitygenerates variations in homicide rates is influenced by . . . [Full text of this article]

Niyi Awofeso, associate professor

¹ School of Public Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

niyi.awofeso@justicehealth.nsw.gov.au