The rise in the incarceration rate may help explain the falling gap in homicide rates between Blacks, Hispanics and Whites.

Blacks, Hispanics and Whites all have differing homicide rates. But how have these rates changed in recent years? In new research which examines 131 metropolitan areas, Michael T. Light takes the first look at trends in racial and ethnic homicide gaps in the US since 1990, finding that these gaps had decreased by between 35 and 50 percent. He writes that these declining trends may be explained by a growing immigrant population, and more importantly, by a rising incarceration rate which has disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minorities.