Social strainRamírez-de Garay, Luis David (Avtor) Purpose: The objective of this work is to propose alternative strategies to assess the link between social context and violent crime through the use of quantitative analysis. For this purpose, I use Social Strain, a newly developed concept for the empirical assessment of contextual effects on violent crime. Design/Methods/Approach: Social Strain has three components: Ascribed Economic Conditions, Opportunities Structure, and Institutional Support. Each component was identified with a Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Afterwards, the resulting components were tested using an exploratory application of Structural Equation Modelling to detect different articulations between the components and homicide rates. This work used the Eurostat database to measure the death rate in 193 European regions from 13 EU countries (2001–2006), and socio-economic statistics from different sources for the elaboration of the components. Findings: The results of this work showed the relevance of the regional institutional structure for the variation of homicide rates at the cross-national level. Social strain turned out to be a useful instrument to detect the basic components linked with criminogenic contexts and, even more appealing, the differential articulations between the same components. Research Limitations / Implications: The results of this research showed that more detailed data are needed in order to take full advantage of the techniques utilized here. However, the application of SEM modelling proved to be a promising route in empirically-based crime research. Originality/Value: In comparison with other studies of violent crime in Western Europe, the present work is the first to incorporate a cross-national and longitudinal analysis of homicide rates to address particular theoretical questions at the meso-level. It is also the first attempt to use the Eurostat regional database as its empirical source.20142020-04-21 11:45:55Znanstveno delo76177UDK: 343.3/.7(4)OceCobissID: 99492352COBISS_ID: 2834154ISSN pri članku: 1580-0253NUK URN: URN:SI:UM:DK:U97KEHQ8sl