When applied to homicide clearance by arrest, the victim-devaluing perspective posits that police favor higher—social status victims by allocating greater investigative effort to their cases. Previous studies have measured social status via a dichotomous race variable (White vs. Black, White vs. non-White, or non-Hispanic White vs. racial/ ethnic minority). As the Hispanic population grows in the United States, it is increasingly important to extend homicide clearance research beyond the traditional questions of dichotomous racial/ethnic differences. Using 2000-2007 homicide data from agencies that report victim’s ethnicity to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), the current study examines the impact of victim’s race/ethnicity on homicide clearance by arrest via a trichomotous measure (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, or Hispanic). Event history analysis found that, controlling for other incident characteristics, homicides with Hispanic victims had a lower risk of clearance by arrest than those with non-Hispanic White or non-Hispanic Black v ictims.
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