A study conducted by researchers at the University of Iowa and the University of Missouri-St. Louis claimed at it’s presentation Sunday, that during and shortly after periods of recession, reports of victimization of females and minority males increased dramatically.

Karen Heimer and Janet Lauritsen estimated trends in non-lethal, but violent victimization for various categories of minority and non-minority groups for presentation at today’s 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The study used crime data from the National Crime Victimization Surveys, from 1973 to 2005.

“The findings offer new empirical evidence regarding the similarities and differences in risks of serious non-lethal violent victimization across race ethnic-gender groups over time. Minorities experience substantially higher rates of violent victimization than non-Latino whites in the United States, our study shows that the higher rates of poverty, urban residence and differential age distributions of non-Latino blacks and Latinos help to explain these groups’ higher victimization rates. Moreover, our study examines data from the early 1970s to the present and documents an association between economic downturn and increases in victimization rates among minorities over this period,” Heimer, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Iowa, said.

Karen Heimer published a book titled “Gender and Crime: Patterns of Victimization and Offending” in 2006.

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