ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses urban areas and violent crime, and examines the urban environment and dangerous places. Violent crime and fear of victimization were central themes in the 1988 presidential election, with George Bush using the furlough of Willie Horton in Massachusetts as a symbol of the risk of criminal victimization to which citizens are exposed. The chapter explores the nature and structure of urban black homicide as identified through research on the subject with Harold M. Rose. It argues the reconceptualization of urban violence. The chapter describes the importance of black political scientists to policy research. Black political scientists need to direct more attention in public policy research to issue identification and problem structuring with the hope that future policies of concern to black America will address problems as they exist, not as they have been politicized. The question of risk-group identification is potentially the more dangerous threat to civil liberties and civil rights.
