The marginalization correlatives of high homicide neighbourhoods in the City of Toronto

This research uses homicide and marginalization data from the city of Toronto in order to understand whether, or to what extent, socio-economic marginalization has an impact on homicide counts at the neighbourhood level. This research uses a three stage methodology to answer this question. Firstly, a negative binomial regression was used to understand the  relationship between socio-economic marginalization and lethal violence at the neighbourhood level. The residuals of this model were used to understand where and how this relationship varied. Next, Emerging Hot Spot Analysis was used to determine which Toronto neighbourhoods had high levels of homicide across time. Finally, the marginalization characteristics of these areas were examined to provide insight. This research found that the only marginalization variable that had a statistically significant impact on homicide counts was Material Deprivation. This echoes the criminological consensus on the subject. With regards to the Emerging Hot Spot Analysis, it was demonstrated that homicide in the city of Toronto does exhibited spatially and temporally persistent clustering.

Keywords: Homicide, Negative Binomial Regression, Emerging Hot Spot Analysis, Neighbourhood Level, Marginalization.