Sociological Forum, Vol. 30, No.

1, March 2015
DOI: 10.1111/socf.12145
© 2015 Eastern Sociological Society

Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence at the Macro-Level:

Examining the Conditioning Effect of Victim Race/Ethnicity1
Casey T. Harris,2 Jeff Gruenewald,3 and Noah Painter-Davis4

Much attention has been devoted to the relationship between Hispanic immigration and violent offending
at the macro-level, including how it varies across racial and ethnic groups. Unfortunately, little attention
has been paid to the conditioning effect of the race/ethnicity of the victim, or how Hispanic immigration
is associated with crime by one racial/ethnic group against members of the same or different groups.
Using National Incident-Based Reporting System offending estimates and American Community Survey
data, we examine the association between Hispanic immigration and black intra- and intergroup (black-
on-white and black-on-Hispanic) homicide, robbery, and serious index violence in over 350 U.S. commu-
nities. We employ advanced imputation methods to address missing data that have constrained much
prior research, as well as utilize crime measures adjusted for the likelihood of random contact between
groups. Findings suggest that (1) Hispanic immigration has a positive association with black violence on
the whole, but that (2) this association is conditioned by the race/ethnicity of the victim. Our results
reinforce the importance of distinguishing across offender–victim dyads in research on the immigration–
crime nexus, particularly in light of competing theoretical expectations. Directions for future research
and policy are discussed.

KEY WORDS: crime; ethnicity; immigration; race; victimization; violence.

INTRODUCTION

A pressing issue facing the social sciences over the past several decades has
been assessing whether and how immigrants—especially those of Hispanic origin—
have reshaped the social landscape of the United States, including their impact on
social problems like crime. Responding to the dramatic growth of the Hispanic pop-
ulation resulting from both high fertility rates and immigration (Johnson and Lich-
ter 2008), criminologists have now generated a sizable body of empirical literature
examining both the criminality of foreign-born Hispanics (Hagan and Palloni 1999)
and the relationship between Hispanic immigration and crime at the macro-level.
Regarding the latter, over two-dozen empirical studies assessing the immigration–
crime link overall find generally null effects, net of other key structural characteris-
tics (for a review, see Ousey and Kubrin 2009).

1
William J. Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences Summer Research Stipend provided funding for this
project. We would like to thank David Johnson for help with the imputation of data.
2
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Arkansas, 211 Old Main, Fayetteville,
Arkansas 72701; e-mail: caseyh@uark.edu.
3
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Arkansas, 211 Old Main, Fayetteville,
Arkansas 72701.
4
Department of Sociology, University of New Mexico, 1915 Roma NE, Suite 1103, Albuquerque, New
Mexico 87131.

62
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 63

Increasingly, however, criminologists have sought to extend macro-level

research by exploring the association between Hispanic immigration and crime for
specific racial and ethnic groups (e.g., Feldmeyer and Steffensmeier 2009; Shihadeh
and Barranco 2010a). Much of the emphasis has rested on how Hispanic immigra-
tion is associated with black violence, largely because of the potential economic
competition between foreign-born Hispanics and domestic minorities (Bean and
Stevens 2003) and the relatively greater degree of residential integration with native
blacks (Feldmeyer 2010; Feldmeyer, Steffensmeier, and Ulmer 2013; Pearce and
Sokoloff 2013).5 On the one hand, Shihadeh and Barranco (2010a) observe signifi-
cantly greater incidence of black homicide in cities with greater concentrations of
Hispanic immigrants. On the other hand, Nielsen, Lee, and Martinez (2005) and
Nielsen and Martinez (2009) find that immigration in Miami is associated with
lower rates of black homicide, aggravated assault, and (to a lesser extent) robbery.
Other research by Harris and Feldmeyer (2013) reveals evidence of both crimino-
genic and protective associations between Hispanic immigration and black violence
that varies according to the sociohistorical legacy of Hispanic immigrant
settlement.
Yet, amid the growth of race/ethnic-specific research, there remains an impor-
tant gap in knowledge. Specifically, whether and how the relationship between His-
panic immigration and violent crime is conditioned by the race/ethnicity of the victim
remains empirically unsettled. That is, most research focuses on the relationship
between Hispanic immigration and crime overall, while fewer studies examine the
relationship for specific racial/ethnic groups, and almost no research to date has
empirically explored how Hispanic immigration is associated with offending by one
group (e.g., blacks) against members of the same or different groups. Of the more
than two-dozen studies exploring the macro-level association between immigration
and crime (see reviews in Feldmeyer 2009; Ousey and Kubrin 2009), we identified
only a single study to do so: in their examination of violent crime in San Antonio,
Cancino, Martinez, and Stowell (2009) observe that the concentration of immi-
grants is positively related to black-on-Hispanic robbery but not black-on-black
robbery, net of other key structural characteristics.
To be sure, this oversight is at least partly attributable to a shortage of data.
Macro-level crime statistics that specify both the race/ethnicity of the offender and
victim are relatively rare. As such, prior research has often been forced to utilize (1)
arrest data with identifiers for the race and sometimes ethnicity of the offender
(Feldmeyer and Steffensmeier 2009) or (2) victimization data that code the race/eth-
nicity of the victim (Martinez 2000; Martinez, Stowell, and Lee 2010; Shihadeh and
Barranco 2010b). Regrettably, these data are unsuitable for untangling “who

5
Unfortunately, whether Hispanic immigrants live alongside domestic blacks (particularly in disadvan-
taged communities) has been less studied than the segregation of domestic minority groups relative to
domestic whites (see, e.g., Iceland and Scopilliti 2008; Reardon et al., 2008). However, the segmented
assimilation literature emphasizes that the relatively low levels of human capital among some immi-
grant groups (money, education, etc.) may force new immigrants to reside alongside poor blacks rather
than move into neighborhoods with a greater proportion of domestic whites (Portes and Rumbaut
2000), while a number of localized and anecdotal studies find evidence that such patterns exist (see,
e.g., Marrow 2011).
64 Harris et al.

offends against whom,” because they focus on one of two sides (offender, victim) of
the incident without considering the other.
Nevertheless, addressing this gap in knowledge and moving beyond extant
research is important for two reasons. First, prior studies may have missed important
differences in the association between Hispanic immigration and race/ethnic-specific
crime at the macro-level. For example, Hispanic immigration may be associated with
greater black-on-black offending, but have little or no impact on black-on-white or
black-on-Hispanic offending. Consolidating all black violence together obscures these
differences as noted by a sizable body of research on black-on-white offending that
suggests key structural correlates of crime often differ in their relationship with intra-
versus intergroup offending (Blalock 1967; D’Alessio and Stolzenberg 2009; D’Alessio,
Stolzenberg, and Eitle 2002; McCall and Parker 2005).
Second, such research can help to sort out the underlying theoretical
mechanisms through which Hispanic immigration influences black crime at the
macro-level. As noted above, a growing body of race/ethnic-specific scholarship has
generated considerable theorizing as to why Hispanic immigration might impact
black crime and violence. For example, Shihadeh and Barranco (2010a) suggest that
black homicide might be elevated in cities with a greater Hispanic immigrant pres-
ence because of greater competition between immigrants and domestic blacks for
low-skill labor market positions which, in turn, produces labor market dislocation
among blacks and elevated rates of black violence. In contrast, Nielsen et al. (2005)
and Nielsen and Martinez (2009) argue that Hispanic immigration reinvigorates
social institutions and bolsters social control in the disadvantaged neighborhoods
shared by both blacks and Hispanic immigrants. Unfortunately, without examining
the race/ethnicity of both offenders and victims, it remains unclear who black
offenders are targeting in the context of Hispanic immigration and, as a result, the
theoretical mechanisms through which Hispanic immigration affects black violence.

THEORETICAL EXPECTATIONS

Drawing from criminological and sociological theory, there are a number of

plausible expectations suggesting both criminogenic and protective relationships
between Hispanic immigration and black intra- and intergroup violence. While the
current study does not aim to test all of them, we note that these positions provide
little consensus and at times offer contradictory predictions about whether and how
Hispanic immigration should impact aggregate levels of black intra- or intergroup
violence.

Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence Against Hispanics

We note, first, that theories of target vulnerability and routine activities suggest
that Hispanic immigration might be related to increased black-on-Hispanic offend-
ing because Hispanic immigrants and, to a lesser extent domestic Hispanics, may be
especially attractive targets of crime for black offenders (Cohen and Felson 1979).
Some scholars have noted that Hispanic immigrants are more likely to engage in
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 65

the informal economy and, because of fears of deportation and distrust of authori-
ties, are also reluctant to contact the police or to carry firearms for protection (Bau-
er 2009; Valenzuela 2006). Similarly, group threat perspectives imply that black-on-
Hispanic violence might increase as a result of racial hostility against Hispanics as
blacks act out on their fear of losing ground to a perceived subordinate group (Blu-
mer 1958). In particular, greater residential mixing between blacks and Hispanics
might combine with less favorable economic conditions to increase racial/ethnic
unease and elevated rates of black violence against Hispanics who may be seen by
blacks as “leapfrogging” them in the social structure (Cancino et al. 2009; see
review in Marrow 2011).
In contrast, the “contact hypothesis” literature suggests that Hispanic immigra-
tion may reduce black conflict and violence against Hispanics (and whites) as out-
group stereotypes are weakened and intergroup tolerance and solidarity are increased
(Allport 1954). Rather than exacerbating feelings of encroachment and threat among
blacks, the greater diversity produced by Hispanic immigration may also help to
expand human and social capital networks in locales by broadening social and
cultural ties and widening the pool of skills, resources, and services available to
community members in ways that reduce black-on-Hispanic crime (Fischer 1995).

Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence Against Whites

Relatedly, Hispanic immigration may increase rates of black violence against

whites per consolidated inequality perspectives, which argue that economic dispari-
ties increase social distance between groups in ways that engender frustration and
are acted out as violence by disadvantaged groups against the dominant majority
(Blau and Blau 1982; see also Hipp, Tita, and Bogges 2009). Hispanic immigration
may marginalize blacks, resulting in wider gaps between blacks and whites in terms
of well-being. Blacks may feel hostility and ultimately act violently toward whites
who are regarded as giving preferential treatment to Hispanic immigrants and in
part responsible for any adverse effects of immigration on the black community
(Marrow 2011).

Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence Against Blacks

In contrast, other prominent theoretical frameworks—including social disorga-

nization and anomie perspectives—suggest that Hispanic immigration might be
associated with black violence against other blacks. On the one hand, an influx of
poor Hispanic immigrants may create the types of disorganization, strain, and dis-
ruptive effects (heterogeneity, population movement, weakened cohesion and con-
trol) that are expected to generate crime (Merton 1964; Shaw and McKay 1942).
As a result, the reduced social control in black communities may lead to greater vio-
lence against the most readily available targets: other blacks. On the other hand,
revitalization or “immigrant/Latino paradox” perspectives (Martinez et al. 2010;
Sampson 2008) suggest that Hispanic immigration might be associated with reduced
black intragroup violence. Specifically, these perspectives argue that Hispanic
66 Harris et al.

immigration may provide crime-buffering advantages (e.g., informal social control)

to all community residents in ways that reduce the social angst and frustration pro-
ducing black-on-black violence (Feldmeyer 2009).

THE CURRENT STUDY

The goal of the current study is to extend prior research and explore whether
and how Hispanic immigration impacts black intra- and intergroup violence in a
geographically dispersed sample of communities. Our primary research question is,
Is the association between Hispanic immigration and black violent crime conditioned
by the race/ethnicity of the victim? As noted above, we move beyond prior research
by simultaneously taking into account the race/ethnicity of both offenders and vic-
tims to sort out “who is offending against whom” in the context of Hispanic
immigration.

Data

We draw on two primary data sources. First, estimates of black-on-black,

black-on-white, and black-on-Hispanic offending are taken from the National Inci-
dent-Based Reporting System’s (NIBRS’s) incident level extract files for the years
2005–2009 (for a review of NIBRS, see Roberts 2009). Following prior research
with NIBRS (e.g., Jarvis and Regoeczi 2009; Stolzenberg, Eitle, and D’Alessio
2006), we limit our analysis to single-offender and single-victim incidents because
they comprise the majority (nearly two-thirds) of all reported violent incidents in
NIBRS for these years.6 Second, we utilize the 5-year (2005–2009) American Com-
munities Survey (ACS) data to derive estimates of macro-structural characteristics
for our sample of census places. These were paired with our crime counts using
standard geographic identifiers and aggregated to the census place level.
The National Incident-Based Reporting System is uniquely suited for our pur-
poses because, first, it is the only data source that allows for the examination of
offending within and across groups for both homicide and nonlethal violent offend-
ing. Most prominent databases that cover a wide range of offenses only code the
race or ethnicity of an arrestee (e.g., Uniform Crime Reporting [UCR], city-level
agency data, etc.) or victim (e.g., National Crime Victimization Survey, etc.),7 while
6
Our analysis is limited to single-offender and single-victim incidents for other reasons as well. First, it
simplifies the coding of intra- and intergroup crime incidents because incidents in which there are multi-
ple offenders or victims with varying race/ethnicity are particularly difficult to classify. Second, it sim-
plifies the imputation procedure. Missingness for race/ethnicity is significantly greater among multiple-
offender/multiple-victim incidents, which introduces much more complexity and uncertainty into the
imputation procedure utilized here.
7
It is unclear how well Hispanic immigrant victims are measured in the NCVS and NIBRS. On the one
hand, the NCVS likely undercounts immigrant victimizations because (1) their sampling frame is con-
structed from Census data that undercounts the unauthorized population, (2) immigrants are less likely
to be surveyed due to fluid living arrangements, and (3) immigrants may be less likely to respond to offi-
cial surveys. On the other hand, NIBRS may undercount immigrant victimizations because they are
reluctant to contact the police (Fussell 2011), although this is less of an issue for homicides (which are
less subject to reporting biases) and other acts of violence if detected by law enforcement or reported
by third parties.
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 67

other databases may provide intra- and intergroup offending estimates but only for
homicide (e.g., Supplemental Homicide Reports).8 Indeed, extant research has over-
whelmingly focused on lethal violence using these prominent victimization or arrest
databases, despite the fact that homicide is only a small part of all violence and an
even smaller component of all crime in the United States.
Second, NIBRS allows us to expand the geographic focus of the immigration–
crime relationship while accounting for the increasingly heterogeneous nature of
Hispanic immigrant settlement (Lichter and Johnson 2009). Whereas the majority
of immigration–crime studies focus on communities near the border and in other
traditional immigrant-receiving locales (see review in Harris and Feldmeyer 2013),
NIBRS provides coverage of both traditional and emergent immigrant destinations
including the South and Midwest. As such, NIBRS is particularly advantageous for
exploring the relationship between Hispanic immigration and black violence
because it offers robust coverage of localities (e.g., emerging destinations, those in
medium- to small-sized metropolitan areas) that are central to emerging scholarly
debates about black–Hispanic relations and the effect of Hispanic immigration on
black well-being (Marrow 2011; McClain et al. 2006). Taken as a whole, then,
NIBRS is perhaps the most useful database for examining the effect of immigration
on black inter- and intragroup violence.9

Missing Data in NIBRS

While NIBRS is particularly useful for examining our research question, miss-
ingness on racial and ethnic identifiers is still problematic. We utilize a three-stage
strategy to alleviate this problem. First, all incidents in Michigan, Ohio, and Okla-
homa were excluded from the analysis because agencies in these states rarely code
ethnicity. This was necessary because assumptions of missingness that would allow
for the use of advanced imputation procedures were violated (for similar procedure,
see Roberts and Lyons 2011).10
Second, following previous criminological research (Gruenewald and
Pridemore 2012), we imputed missing values for our analytic sample using
8
The Supplemental Homicide Reports (SHR) has a number of limitations in studying intergroup vio-
lence (see review in D’Alessio and Stolzenberg 2009). Specifically, ethnicity is coded very inconsistently
(only a small percentage of agencies reporting victim ethnicity). When combined with the fact that data
on homicides are often missing on race of offender, the SHR are not well suited for the study of inter-
group violence (similar problems face the National Violent Death Reporting System). Likewise, the
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is problematic because (1) it focuses primarily on crimes
in central cities, and thus misses out on an important subsection of the Hispanic population and (2)
does not include homicide.
9
While NIBRS codes the ethnicity of victims separately, the database is far from ideal in that it is not
possible to distinguish the ethnicity of offenders, which limits our ability to examine Hispanic offend-
ing. Moreover, we do not examine white intra- and intergroup violence because the “white” racial cate-
gory for offenders is likely confounded by the inclusion of Hispanics whereas the “black” offending
estimates are much less likely to include a sizable number of Hispanics (see Steffensmeier et al. 2011).
As an alternative, NIBRS does provide the ethnicity of arrestees and we return to this issue in our
conclusion.
10
For example, in 2009 100% of cases in Ohio and Oklahoma and 80% of cases in Michigan were miss-
ing on victim ethnicity. In contrast, other NIBRS states averaged 14% missing on victim ethnicity.
Diagnostics suggested that including these states in the analysis resulted in bias in our imputations.
68 Harris et al.

“imputation by chained equations” (ICE procedure in STATA [see Royston

2004]). ICE is a particularly useful procedure when missing values occur on
several variables as it allows for the estimation of one imputation model with
a series of regression equations (i.e., one for each variable with missing values)
to generate imputations. In terms of key variables, logit models were used to
impute the victim’s ethnicity, while multinomial models were used to impute
race for offenders and victims. Upon completion, victim ethnicity and victim
race were then collapsed into one variable capturing “victim race/ethnicity.”
Following best practices, our imputation model included all of the variables in
our analysis model and a set of auxiliary variables that are strong predictors
of the missing values (Johnson and Young 2011). Specifically, we included
“auxiliary variables” for both census place characteristics (e.g., percent His-
panic) and incident-level variables (e.g., relationship between victim and
offender).11
Third, using the imputation procedure above, we created 10 imputed data sets
at the incident level (Roberts and Lyons 2011) and then aggregated to the census
place level to create census place counts of inter- and intragroup black violence.
This process was repeated for each of the incident-level databases that were then
averaged to take into account the uncertainty associated with the imputations
(Johnson and Young 2011; Roberts and Lyons 2011). Forming these aggregate
counts of crime from many incidents (but within one census place) that have differ-
ent values reduces the error component of imputations, and averaging across differ-
ent imputed databases further reduces the uncertainty associated with the
imputations.

Unit of Analysis

The unit of analysis is the incorporated census place, which include nonover-
lapping geographic units tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau, ranging from small
towns, villages, and boroughs housing several thousand residents up to the largest
metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) that have dominated prior race-composition
crime studies (Harris and Feldmeyer 2013; U.S. Census Bureau 1994). Although
not as common as some other units of analysis, it has certain advantages. First, cen-
sus places vary considerably in size, racial/ethnic composition, structural character-
istics, and violent offending, allowing us to examine the link between Hispanic
immigration and black intra- and intergroup offending across a wide variety of
communities. Second, compared to very small units of analysis (e.g., neighbor-
hoods), census places are large enough to provide sizable numbers of each race/eth-
nic group and adequate counts of intra- and intergroup black violence to allow for
meaningful statistical analysis.

11
We included the following auxiliary variables: percent missing on ethnicity to control for variation
across agencies in coding of ethnicity (census place level), percent black (census place level), percent
Hispanic (census place level), offender/victim age, race, and sex (incident level), and relationship
between victim and offender (incident level). Diagnostics reveal that the inclusion of these variables
results in the data meeting the assumption of “missing at random.”
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 69

Sample

The sample includes census places whose police agencies participate in NIBRS,
that have a total population of at least 5,000 and at least 500 whites, 500 blacks,
and 500 Hispanics. These selection criteria are used in order to provide reliable mea-
sures of violence and structural characteristics across census places (but see supple-
mental models). Our final sample is comprised of 363 census places.
A large number of states (35) contribute census places to the current analysis.
Even though NIBRS is not nationally representative and tends to overrepresent law
enforcement agencies that cover smaller population areas (Addington 2008), its geo-
graphic coverage is well suited for the current study because, as reviewed above, it
extends the geographic focus of prior immigration–crime research to include new
destinations and provides coverage of localities that are central to emerging schol-
arly debates about black–Hispanic relations and the effect of Hispanic immigration
on black well-being (Marrow 2011).12

Dependent Variable

The dependent variables in this study are census place black-on-black,

black-on-white, and black-on-Hispanic homicide incidents, robbery rates, and
violent index rates. Homicide and robbery are considered two of the most
reliably reported crimes (Steffensmeier and Haynie 2000), while the violent
index (the sum of homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) represents a
broader spectrum of the criminal landscape and is considered to be a reasonable
proxy for serious violence.
We build upon recent empirical scholarship by noting that many prior studies
of intra- and intergroup crime have not accounted for the likelihood of interaction
across different racial/ethnic groups and have instead relied on either the total pop-
ulation (Wadsworth and Kubrin 2004) or the victim/offender’s population (Stolzen-
berg et al. 2006) as the denominator in computing crime rates. As Hipp, Tita, and
Boggess (2011) demonstrate, this method produces inconsistent rates because the
rates are a function of the size of the two groups: in places that are predominantly
black (or white or Hispanic), the correlation between the group size and the denom-
inator introduces bias in the estimation of intergroup rates and can create built-in
relationships with the racial/ethnic composition of the place (e.g., between Hispanic
immigration and black-on-Hispanic violence rates). As such, we follow Hipp et al.
(2009, 2011) and calculate intra- and intergroup rates of violence that are adjusted
to account for the different sizes of each racial/ethnic group and their likelihood of
randomly interacting with each other in geographic space. Specifically, we calculate
the conditional probabilities of random interaction for black-on-black offending as
follows:
12
Harris and Feldmeyer (2013) find that Hispanic immigration is positively associated with homicide in
nontraditional destinations (i.e., those communities with little history of immigrant settlement until
recent decades), but observe lower rates of black violence in traditional destinations. Although it is
beyond the scope of the current study to fully explore different types of immigrant communities (see
Singer 2004), future research would do well to sort out the new/traditional destinations distinction.
70 Harris et al.

½ðNB ÞðNB  1Þ=½ðNT ÞðNT  1Þ ð1Þ

where NB is the size of the black population in a given census place and NT is the
total at-risk population (ages 10–64; but see our supplemental models). Likewise,
the conditional probabilities of random interaction for intergroup rates are calcu-
lated as follows:
½ðNB Þ=ðNA Þ=½ðNT ÞðNT  1Þ ð2Þ
where NB is the size of the black population in a given census place, NA is the size
of the other racial/ethnic group (either white or Hispanic), and NT is the total at-
risk population (ages 10–64). In turn, we use these conditional probabilities to gen-
erate robbery and index violence rates by multiplying them by the total at-risk pop-
ulation in each census places and then by 1,000 to construct our final rates. For
homicide, the adjusted population figures (i.e., the conditional probabilities multi-
plied by the at-risk population) are entered in our negative binomial models as
exposure terms (see note in Table II). In sum, our dependent variables are adjusted
to reflect the potential bias between Hispanic immigration and black intra- and in-
tergroup violence that might be introduced if our violence rates were calculated
using only the black population as our denominator in our rate calculations. All
offending was averaged across 5 years (2005–2009) to add stability to the estimates
and to ensure adequate offense counts. Because these offending rates have skewed
distributions with some census places having particularly high rates, the rates are
square-root transformed to normalize their distributions (see Phillips 2002).13
Official sources of data are subject to many well-known criticisms, namely that
(1) crime counts underestimate true levels of offending and (2) they may reflect
greater enforcement in areas with larger minority or immigrant presence. We note
that these concerns are less problematic for more serious offenses like homicide,
robbery, and violent index offenses that are more reliably reported to the police and
are more likely to result in arrest (LaFree, Baumer, and O’Brien 2008; Schwartz
2006; Steffensmeier and Haynie 2000). Nevertheless, we attempted to further allevi-
ate concern by including a control for police presence in order to account for poten-
tial differences in enforcement capacity across census places (see control variables
below). In addition, we estimated supplemental models that control for clearance
rates in each census place that produced nearly identical findings as those utilizing a
measure of police presence (see supplemental models).

Independent Variables

The key independent variable in this study is a standard principle component

index (Land, McCall, and Cohen 1990) combining two variables: (1) the percentage
of the total population in a census place that is Hispanic and foreign born (percent
13
We utilize a square-root transformation because the robbery and violent index rates were positively
skewed and models using a square-root transformation yielded better model fit as determined by
Akaike information criteria (AIC) values than models utilizing untransformed rates or logarithmic
transformations (for similar application, see Phillips 2002).
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 71

Hispanic immigrant concentration) and (2) the percentage of the total population
this is Hispanic and doesn’t speak English “well” or “very well” (Hispanic weak
English proficiency). These measures loaded onto the same factor with a Cronbach
alpha greater than .8. We note here that both the relative size of the Hispanic immi-
grant population and language ability are two of the more common macro-level
measures found in the prior research, especially those that inform the current study
(e.g., Cancino et al. 2009; Desmond and Kubrin 2010; Reid et al. 2005; Shihadeh
and Barranco 2010a, 2010b; see review in Ousey and Kubrin 2009). Likewise, these
measures are consistent with the theoretical perspectives reviewed earlier in our arti-
cle that emphasize the disorganizing/anomic contributions of linguistically isolated
immigrants especially (but see also our supplemental models).
In addition to Hispanic immigration, a number of important structural factors
are included as controls. First, based upon standard principal components methods,
a black structural disadvantage index was created from four race-specific indicators—
(1) poverty, measured as the percentage of black census-place residents below the
poverty line; (2) unemployment, measured as the percentage of the black civilian labor
force between the ages of 16 and 59 that is unemployed; (3) female headship, mea-
sured as the percentage of black families with children under 18 years old that are
headed by a female; and (4) low education, measured as the proportion of the black
population without a high school degree or equivalent. We note here that combining
these components into a structural disadvantage index reduces problematic multicol-
linearity (variance inflation factors all fell below 3.0 in our final models).
Second, because of their demonstrated relevance in previous studies, the fol-
lowing variables are also controlled for: residential instability (the percentage of
black households that experience housing turnover during the previous 5 years); the
relative size of the domestic Hispanic population that helps us parse out the impact
of foreign born versus native Hispanics; multigroup entropy as a measure of racial/
ethnic diversity (Reardon and Firebaugh 2002); male crime-prone population (the
percentage of the black population ages 15–24 and male; see also our supplemental
analyses); population size (logged); population density (logged); and police per capita
as a control for variations across census places in law enforcement activity.14

Analytic Strategy

The analysis unfolds in three stages. First, we present descriptive statistics

for our sample of census places, focusing in particular on rates of intragroup

14
We do not control for the urban/rural status of census places because there is almost no variation in
this measure. Although census places in our sample have widely varying population sizes (which we
control for), the sample is overwhelmingly urban (more than 95%) as a result of the selection criteria
imposed (i.e., 5,000 total residents and 500 blacks and Latinos). Supplemental models (available upon
request) including percentage urban are substantively similar to the results presented here. Addition-
ally, spatial autocorrelation does not appear to be a problem. Census places are not widely contiguous
units that share common borders (as counties do, for example) and, coupled with our selection criteria
that eliminated additional places, the units under analysis are not close enough to one another in space
to have meaningful spatial effects (i.e., there were spatial “islands” where the nearest neighbor was
hundreds of miles away). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Moran’s I tests were nonsignificant and we could
not reject the null hypothesis that values on our dependent variables were spatially random.
72 Harris et al.

(black-on-black) and intergroup (black-on-white and black-on-Hispanic) homicide,

robbery, and violent index offending, as well as the structural conditions within our
sample of census places. Second, we estimate negative binomial regression models
for homicide (Osgood 2000) and seemingly unrelated regression models for robbery
and index violence regressing black-on-black, black-on-white, and black-on-His-
panic violence on Hispanic immigration and other key macro-structural measures.
These models seek to answer our research question—whether the association
between Hispanic immigration and black violent offending varies by the race of the
victim. Third, we examine the robustness of our results in a series of supplemental
models.
We note that because our intra- and intergroup offending measures are derived
from the same set of census places, our sample violates the ordinary least squares
(OLS) assumption of independent samples for the third stage of our analysis. As a
result, seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) is more appropriate for our analysis
because it takes into account the correlated errors associated with shared, unmea-
sured predictors across groups and provides more robust standard errors for testing
the equality of coefficients across models estimated from the same sample of places
(for more detailed discussions and similar applications of SUR, see Feldmeyer
2010; Schwartz 2006). Additionally, we estimate F-tests (Wald tests) to identify
whether the relationships between Hispanic immigration and violence are signifi-
cantly different across intra- and interracial models (see note in Tables II–IV).

RESULTS

We begin by displaying descriptive statistics for our sample of 363 census

places in Table I. Means and standard deviations are provided for blacks—our key
offending group—when possible. Our particular focus is on the mean incidence and
rate of black intra- versus intergroup violent offending, as well as the mean concen-
tration of Hispanic immigrants, exposure to disadvantage, and other macro-struc-
tural characteristics. Recall, that our black violence rates are adjusted for the
likelihood of random contact between groups and account for differences in group
size. We note two key findings.
First, black intragroup violence is, on average, more common than black inter-
group violence. For example, the average number of black-on-black homicides per
census place (3.6) is significantly greater than the mean number of black-on-white
(.5) and black-on-Hispanic homicides (.2). Likewise, the black-on-black robbery
rate (3.9) is more than double the black-on-white (1.2) and black-on-Hispanic rob-
bery rate (1.4). These disparities are even more apparent for the violent index where
the contact-adjusted black intergroup index violence rate is over 11 times greater
than the black-on-white or the black-on-Hispanic rate (60.8, 4.70, and 5.35,
respectively).
Second, roughly 4.4% of the total population in our census places are Hispanic
immigrants and an average of 2.4% of the population are Hispanics who have weak
English proficiency, findings that should not be surprising given the relatively large,
urban nature of our sample as a result of our selection criteria (see footnote 10).
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 73

Table I. Descriptive Statistics for Key Variables in Sample of Census Places (N = 363)

Mean Std. Dev.

Dependent Variables: a,b

Black–Black Homicides 3.63 18.86
Black–White Homicides .52 1.74
Black–Hispanic Homicides .20 .89
Black–Black Robbery Rate 3.87 (1.43) 6.62 (1.35)
Black–White Robbery Rate 1.17 (.92) 1.31 (.57)
Black–Hispanic Robbery Rate 1.39 (.82) 2.33 (.84)
Black–Black Violent Index Rate 60.80 (6.31) 119.18 (4.58)
Black–White Violent Index Rate 4.70 (1.91) 5.04 (1.02)
Black–Hispanic Violent Index Rate 5.35 (1.87) 7.26 (1.37)
Key Independent Variables:
Hispanic Immigration Indexc 0.00 1.00
Percent Hispanic Immigrant Concentration 4.39 4.91
Hispanic Weak English Proficiency 2.41 3.17
Control Variables:
Structural Disadvantagec 0.00 1.00
Black Poverty 25.16 14.16
Black Unemployment 12.01 7.19
Black Female Headship 31.81 15.24
Black Low Education 17.13 10.44
Black Residential Mobility 26.21 12.34
Domestic Hispanic Population 7.18 8.11
Racial/Ethnic Diversity .58 .19
Black Male Crime-Prone Population 9.88 6.15
Total Population (ln) 10.64 .96
Population Density (ln) 7.55 .67
Police per Capita (ln) 5.28 .39
a
Means and standard deviations for square-root transformed measures in parentheses.
b
Intra- an intergroup rates are adjusted for probability of contact in the denominator of the rate formula;
homicide counts are unadjusted because the adjustment is performed during negative binomial estimation
using the “exposure” option.
c
Cronbach’s alphas > .8.

Likewise, the average census place in our sample is characterized by 25.2% of the
black population falling below the poverty line and 12.0% reporting being unem-
ployed. Similarly, a female heads 31.8% of black families with nonadult children,
while 17.1% of the black population lacks a high school degree, on average. These
patterns of black violence and disadvantage are consistent with prior research.

Multivariate Analysis

Our goal now is to assess the extent to which Hispanic immigration is associ-
ated with black intra- and intergroup homicide (Table II), robbery (Table III), and
index violence (Table IV). In each table, results are displayed separately for black-
on-black (column 1), black-on-white (column 2), and black-on-Hispanic offending
(column 3). For reference, we also included models regressing Hispanic immigration
and key controls on overall black violence rates (column 4). Together, these models
enable us to assess not only whether and how Hispanic immigration is associated
with black violence in different ways depending on the race/ethnicity of the victim,
74 Harris et al.

Table II. Negative Binomial Regression of Intra- and Intergroup Black Homicide Offending Incidents
on Hispanic Immigration and Other Key Variables (N = 363)

Reference:
Black–Black Black–White Black–Hispanic Total Black
(1) (2) (3) (4)

Hispanic Immigration Index .293*** .317* .170 .181**

(.075) (.128) (.150) (.066)
Controls:
Structural Disadvantage .084 .095 .318* .169*
(.105) (.127) (.122) (.086)
Residential Mobility .020* .014 .021 .003
(.008) (.010) (.020) (.007)
Domestic Hispanic .006 .016 .030 .037*
(.020) (.022) (.033) (.014)
Racial/Ethnic Diversity 3.818*** 1.863* 2.680 .190
(.652) (.891) (1.478) (.502)
Male Crime-Prone Population .003 .003 .020 .006
(.018) (.022) (.050) (.015)
Total Population (ln) .219** .263* .362* .237**
(.080) (.110) (.156) (.069)
Population Density (ln) .111 .146 .044 .050
(.114) (.177) (.234) (.098)
Police per Capita (ln) .389 .697* .032 .653**
(.269) (.329) (.492) (.203)

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Note: R2 values not displayed because they are not interpretable.

but also to contrast these findings with models of overall black violent offending.
Given space constraints, we focus on our key substantive variable—the Hispanic
immigration index—although we briefly discuss a few of our other key variables.
We turn first to our analysis of black homicide offending. Table II displays the
results of negative binomial models regressing black intra- and intergroup homicide
incidents on Hispanic immigration and other key macro-structural characteristics.
Results reveal that Hispanic immigration has a strong, positive association with
black-on-black (b = .293, p < .001) and black-on-white homicide (b = .317,
p < .05), but not black-on-Hispanic homicide. Indeed, the relationship between
Hispanic immigration and black-on-black and black-on-white homicide is nearly
twice as large as for black-on-Hispanic homicide. Put simply, census places where
Hispanic immigrants are more prevalent tend to have greater incidence of black
homicides against both whites and blacks, but not Hispanics. As a point of compar-
ison, Hispanic immigration is strongly associated with total black homicides (ignor-
ing victim race/ethnicity), net of controls. Thus, we find evidence that the
association between Hispanic immigration and black homicide is conditioned by the
race/ethnicity of the victim, a point that is obscured by models focusing solely on
overall black offending.
Turning to our analysis of robbery in Table III, we find that Hispanic immi-
gration is strongly associated with black robbery across the three victim–offender
dyads. That is, places with a greater Hispanic immigrant presence have higher rates
of black-on-black robbery (b = .173, p < .01), black-on-white robbery (b = .094,
p < .01), and black-on-Hispanic robbery (b = .161, p < .01). Again, however, we
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 75

Table III. SUR Regression of Intra- and Intergroup Black Robbery Offending Rates on Hispanic
Immigration and Other Key Variables (N = 363)

Reference:
Black–Black Black–White Black–Hispanic Total Black
(1) (2) (3) (4)

Hispanic Immigration Index .173** W .094** BH .161*** W .104***

(.064) (.026) (.040) (.027)
Controls:
Structural Disadvantage .290*** .110*** .066 .122***
(.077) (.032) (.048) (.032)
Residential Mobility .004 .004 .003 .002
(.006) (.002) (.004) (.003)
Domestic Hispanic .005 .005 .019** .009*
(.010) (.004) (.006) (.004)
Racial/Ethnic Diversity 1.607*** .303 .173 .254
(.435) (.178) (.269) (.182)
Male Crime-Prone Population .007 .006 .002 .005
(.012) (.005) (.007) (.005)
Total Population (ln) .341*** .092** .250*** .127***
(.077) (.032) (.048) (.032)
Population Density (ln) .027 .007 .098 .023
(.113) (.046) (.070) (.047)
Police per Capita (ln) .372 .366*** .391** .369***
(.199) (.081) (.123) (.083)
2
R .143 .183 .160 .203
Breusch-Pagan X2 = 307.137, p < .001

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Note: W denotes significantly different than black-on-white coefficient; B denotes significantly different
than black-on-black coefficient; and H denotes significantly different than black-on-Hispanic coefficient
using econometric Wald test (F-test) at p < .05.

find that this relationship is conditioned by the race/ethnicity of the victim: compari-
sons across these models reveal that the impact of Hispanic immigration on robbery
is nearly two times greater for black-on-black and black-on-Hispanic robbery than
black-on-white robbery (F-tests confirm that the effects on black-on-black and
black-on-Hispanic robbery differ significantly from its effect on black-on-white rob-
bery). For reference, the association between Hispanic immigration and overall
black robbery (column 4) is statistically significant (b = .104, p < .001), but masks
how this association varies by the race/ethnicity of the victim.
Finally, we examine the relationship between Hispanic immigration and black
index violence in Table IV. Consistent with our robbery models, we find that His-
panic immigration is positively associated with black intra- and intergroup violent
offending, net of key controls. That is, census places with higher levels of Hispanic
immigration tend to have higher levels of black violent offending against whites, His-
panics, and other blacks. However, the relationship between Hispanic immigration and
black violence is conditioned by the race/ethnicity of the victim. Specifically, the rela-
tionship between Hispanic immigration and black-on-black violence is over four
times greater than it is with black-on-white violence and nearly seven times larger
than it is for black-on-Hispanic index violence. F-tests reveal that these disparities are
all statistically significant at p < .05. For reference, Hispanic immigration also has a
statistically significant association with overall black index violence (p < .001).
76 Harris et al.

Table IV. SUR Regression of Intra- and Intergroup Black Violent Index Offending Rates on Hispanic
Immigration and Other Key Variables (N = 363)

Reference:
Black–Black Black–White Black–Hispanic Total Black
(1) (2) (3) (4)

Hispanic Immigration Index .935*** WH .228*** BH .134* WB .187***

(.193) (.045) (.065) (.053)
Controls:
Structural Disadvantage .907*** .262*** .190* .351***
(.232) (.055) (.078) (.067)
Residential Mobility .023 .006 .006 .002
(.018) (.004) (.006) (.005)
Domestic Hispanic .079* .008 .004 .002
(.031) (.007) (.011) (.004)
Racial/Ethnic Diversity 15.351*** 2.474*** 2.482*** 1.907***
(1.307) (.308) (.441) (.369)
Male Crime-Prone Population .003 .003 .001 .004
(.035) (.008) (.012) (.010)
Total Population (ln) .734** .127* .279*** .194**
(.233) (.055) (.078) (.066)
Population Density (ln) .395 .045 .088 .187
(.338) (.080) (.114) (.098)
Police per Capita (ln) .249 .415** .468* .571**
(.587) (.141) (.201) (.173)
R2 .325 .238 .135 .194
Breusch-Pagan X2 = 470.561, p < .001

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Note: W denotes significantly different than black-on-white coefficient; B denotes significantly different
than black-on-black coefficient; and H denotes significantly different than black-on-Hispanic coefficient
using econometric Wald test (F-test) at p < .05.

Overall, then, Table IV reveals that the link between Hispanic immigration and black
index violence is conditioned by the race/ethnicity of the victim and that models
examining overall black index violence obscure this important variation.
At this point we also highlight some findings for our control variables. In par-
ticular, racial/ethnicity diversity stands out for its negative association with black
intragroup and (to a lesser extent) intergroup violence, consistent with other recent
research (e.g., Hipp et al. 2009, 2011). This finding may reflect improved externali-
ties or enhanced bridging social capital that strengthen community social control
and create opportunities for black advancement. Alternatively, research suggests
that blacks have a stronger preference for racial/ethnic diversity than other racial or
ethnic groups and, thus, that diversity is inversely associated with black violence
may reflect greater satisfaction among blacks toward their social context that
reduces feelings of frustration, aggression, or anger. Last, in line with the contact
hypothesis (Allport 1954), diversity may reduce out-group stereotypes and increase
intergroup tolerance in ways that decrease intragroup violence.
Another interesting finding is that percent native Hispanic has generally null
(or even protective) effects on both black intra and intergroup violence, while His-
panic immigration has robust positive associations with black violence. Not only
does this bolster our primary finding—that Hispanic immigration is positively
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 77

associated with black violence in ways that vary by the race/ethnicity of the victim
—but suggests that the theoretical mechanisms through which native Hispanics
impact black crime is unique. Last, structural disadvantage has a statistically signifi-
cant and positive association with most measures of black intra- and intergroup vio-
lence, while places with larger populations have higher levels of black intra- and
intergroup homicide, robbery, and index violence across all models.
Taken as a whole, then, Tables II–IV provide consistent evidence that (1) His-
panic immigration is associated with greater black homicide, robbery, and index
violence offending on the whole, but that (2) these relationships are conditioned by
the race/ethnicity of the victim. We turn now to several robustness checks of our
findings.

Robustness Checks

To check the robustness of our findings and further parse out how Hispanic
immigration is linked to black violence, we reestimated our models (1) using rob-
bery counts instead of rates (see Osgood 2000); (2) restricting our sample of census
places to those with at least 1,000 blacks, whites, and Hispanics; (3) including a con-
trol for “disengaged youth floaters” rather than the male crime-prone population
(Thomas and Shihadeh 2012); (4) including “South” and “Midwest” regional con-
trols; (5) calculating our violence rates using alternative specifications of the denom-
inator (e.g., total black population and black at-risk population rather than the
total population); (6) including a control for black–Hispanic segregation or black
isolation;15 and (7) estimating models using only “percent Hispanic foreign born”
as a measure of Hispanic immigration. Across all of these supplemental models our
substantive findings are virtually unchanged, suggesting that our results are robust
(available upon request; see footnotes for the battery of diagnostic tests we also
ran).

DISCUSSION

Both historically and today, few issues within criminology and the social sci-
ences have engendered more political interest or public furor as to how immigration
has brought changes to our social landscape. Indeed, a recent issue of the Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science (vol. 641, May 2012) and an
accompanying treatment in the New York Times (MacDonald and Sampson 2012)
reiterate the salience of immigration as a hot-button topic. Within criminology,
research at the macro-level has demonstrated that while Hispanic immigration into

15
We estimated models using both the index of dissimilarity to capture black–Hispanic unevenness and
black spatial concentration using the isolation index (see Feldmeyer 2009; Massey and Denton 1988).
None of these measures had a statistically significant relationship with black violence net of controls
(although the isolation index approached statistical significance in its relationship with black-on-black
index violence) and, for the sake of parsimony in displaying our findings, we do not include them in
our final models. However, we note that segregation is a complex issue and how it influences inter-
and intergroup violence warrants further investigation (e.g., who is segregated from whom, unit of
analysis, interaction effects, etc.).
78 Harris et al.

communities is generally unassociated with crime, other emerging race/ethnic-specific

research suggests this may not always be the case. Because of the potential eco-
nomic competition and relative residential integration of Hispanic immigrants into
minority communities, criminologists have increasingly explored how Hispanic
immigration has impacted black crime more specifically. Our review of this litera-
ture suggested that Hispanic immigration is criminogenic for blacks in some circum-
stances and violence reducing in others (Cancino et al. 2009; Feldmeyer and
Steffensmeier 2009), thus suggesting that the immigration–crime link is somewhat
more complicated than first observed.
Yet, the current study sought to address a specific question that has yet to be
empirically settled: Is the relationship between Hispanic immigration and violent
crime conditioned by the race/ethnicity of the victim? We argued that settling whether
Hispanic immigration is associated more strongly with offending against one race/
ethnic group or another is important in order to fully sort out findings from prior
research that can guide theorizing, as well as to uncover the extent to which focus-
ing only on offending (or only on victimization) masks variation in the effect of His-
panic immigration on black violence. Our results were broadly consistent with prior
research demonstrating that Hispanic immigration is positively associated with
black violence at the community level overall (e.g., Shihadeh and Barranco 2010a).
However, in moving beyond extant research we found that Hispanic immigration
was differentially associated with black violence depending on the race/ethnicity of the
victims. Our results revealed that Hispanic immigration was most strongly associ-
ated with black intra- versus intergroup violence (especially for robbery and index
violence) and strongly reinforces the importance of capturing “who offends against
whom.” Importantly, we find these relationships net of the native Hispanic popula-
tion, lending further confidence in our finding that it is Hispanic immigration to
which patterns of black intra-and intergroup violence are responding.
Broadly, our findings suggest that there is much left to be done in sorting out
the theoretical mechanisms at work. Indeed, we do not find clear support for any
single theoretical perspective and it would be a mistake to assume that Hispanic
immigration impacts black offending against all groups in the same manner. As we
see it, there are likely multiple pathways through which Hispanic immigration might
be operating on black violence, and that these pathways may differ for intra- versus
intergroup violence. For example, our results for homicide and index violence pro-
vide support for anomie and disorganization perspectives, suggesting that Hispanic
immigration might draw away resources and investment in black communities in
ways that undermine institutions of social control, produce greater social isolation,
lower collective efficacy, and increase rates of violence between blacks.
While these same perspectives might also explain our findings regarding the
association between Hispanic immigration and black intergroup violence, group
threat and target vulnerability perspectives may play a role as well (Cohen and Fel-
son 1979; Fussell 2011). Likewise, there is no reason to suspect that reductions in
social control and collective efficacy cannot simultaneously operate with increases
in frustration toward other minorities or combine with black residents perceiving
Hispanic immigrants as receiving preferential treatment from whites in ways that
deteriorate relations between blacks and whites. Indeed, when taken together, our
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 79

robbery and homicide findings reveal that Hispanic immigration is associated with
racially and ethnically indiscriminate predatory violence, but is unassociated with
lethal violence that is more likely to be expressive. If so, establishing the theoretical
mechanisms through which Hispanic immigration impacts black violence may gain
greater purchase by separately considering the effects of predatory from expressive
forms of lethal and nonlethal violence.
To this end, future research should seek to empirically sort out the theoretical
mechanisms through which Hispanic immigration influences black violence. While
it was beyond the scope of the current study, questions remain as to what the medi-
ating mechanisms are between Hispanic immigration and black intergroup and
(especially) black intragroup violence. For example, it will be crucial to empirically
establish whether Hispanic immigration contributes to black intergroup violence by
exacerbating racial inequalities and animosity due to competition for employment
opportunities and other resources (e.g., schools, housing, etc.) (Blau and Blau 1982)
or whether immigration intensifies racial/ethnic segregation in ways that increase
black intergroup violence.
Likewise, as the current study’s focus was exclusively on black violent offend-
ing, more research is needed to comparatively examine the impact that immigration
has on intergroup offender–victim dyads for white and Hispanic offenders as well.
Doing so would advance understanding of how immigration is shaping intergroup
relations more broadly, which is itself a growing theme in the social sciences (Mar-
row 2011). Additionally, there is a need for research that examines the relationship
between Hispanic immigration and inter- and intragroup violence across a broader
range of geographic areas. Despite the many virtues of relying on NIBRS for study-
ing intergroup violence in the United States, this database cannot yet be considered
nationally representative. The hope is that with time, participation in NIBRS will
increase and other data sources will become available to better capture the race and
ethnicity of crime participants and extend the scope of research to areas with differ-
ent histories of immigration and racial/ethnic relations (see, e.g., Harris and Feld-
meyer 2013).
While several prominent criminologists have touted a growing consensus in
research findings demonstrating that Hispanic immigration has not increased vio-
lent crime (Lee and Martinez 2009; MacDonald and Sampson 2012), the current
study suggests that such proclamations may be premature given the number of gaps
in knowledge that have yet to be filled. This study adds to emerging scholarship sug-
gesting that the immigration–crime narrative is still unfolding and that untapped
databases, like NIBRS, can offer valuable insight into the immigration–crime rela-
tionship. Our hope is that scholars will build off and extend the current study by
continuing to develop a more complete understanding of the immigration–crime
nexus.
Finally, we also hope that findings from this study can contribute to more
informed policy discussions of the immigration–crime nexus. Blanket assertions
regarding the positive, negative, or null effects of Hispanic immigration on commu-
nities may be misleading. Certainly, we find that the deleterious effects of Hispanic
immigration on community-level black violent crime are somewhat contingent upon
the racial/ethnic makeup of offenders and victims. The observed heterogeneity in
80 Harris et al.

this study suggests that immigration policy aimed at preventing (or reducing) social
problems, like crime, would perhaps gain better traction by focusing on the specific
racial/ethnic groups most likely to be negatively impacted by Hispanic immigration.

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