Criminal Behavior among U.S. Black Men: Pondering the Influence of Stress, Coping and Ethnicity from a Epidemiological Criminology Perspective

Black men living in the United States suffer disproportionately from a number of poor health conditions. The stress-coping paradigm elaborates a process where appraisals of acute and chronic life events as hardship may lead to coping behaviors that ultimately compromise the health of individuals. Criminal activities that include various violent acts have been identified as poor coping behaviors that lead to morbidity and homicidal mortality for Black men. However, the influence of the stress-coping paradigm has not been clarified in this relationship for this population. Moreover, ethnic differences among this group may alter this process for specific groups of Black men. Research has found ethnic differences in perceptions and appraisals of stress, quality and use of social support, and in the engagement of various coping behaviors. The purpose of this discussion will be to raise important and challenging questions about the nature of the influence of stress on criminal behavior among Black men and to ponder the influence of ethnicity on this relationship for this particular population. From an epidemiological criminology perspective, the merging of theories, processes, models, and methods is essential if such dynamic interchange and interaction effects are to be better understood.