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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
This analysis examines two interpretations of social isolation, and the effect each has on the rates of neighborhood crime. The first interpretation views social isolation mainly as class division within the black community. In a subset of a larger body of work, Wilson maintains that two structural changes during the 1960s, the expansion of the public sector of the economy and the civil rights movement, improved the opportunities for working and middle class blacks, who then migrated away. This class-selective depopulation of traditionally black areas removed the
vertical integration of black communities and left behind an isolated underclass that has few links with mainstream society. The resulting class bifurcation in black America is viewed as a major factor in the formation of ghettos. The second interpretation, largely from Massey, emphasizes how racial isolation limits the life chances of blacks in segregated communities. Through discrimination and ongoing institutional arrangements, the ability of blacks to reside in white areas is severely constrained, consigning blacks to areas of multiple disadvantage. The result is a de facto isolation of blacks from white opportunities, white job information networks, white capital, and countless other resources necessary for a successful mainstream life. There are several major findings of this paper. First, this study demonstrates that racial isolation is not necessarily class isolation. Given the socioeconomic differences between blacks and whites, the temptation is to consign as heuristic any distinction between racial and class isolation. But in the real world neighborhoods of this study, one does not blend into the other. On the contrary, these two forms of social isolation occupy distinct geographic areas, and one has an effect on crime, whereas the other does not. Prior literature has avoided this issue primarely because the conceptual and empirical distinction between racial and class isolation is not easily teased out at the city-level. This study, in contrast, demonstrates the utility of neighborhood level data for sorting out the macrosocial path between social isolation and serious crime. Second, racial isolation has profound effects on the rates of violent behavior. Completed and attempted homicide, robbery and **** all showed strong associations with racial isolation. This conforms to the view that the isolation of blacks from whites has negative consequences, in this case serious violence. But despite the strong link with violence, no link is observed with property crime. This pattern is observed not only in the first eight models estimated, but in all other models in this analysis. The robust effects of racial isolation on violence and the complete absence of effects on property crime might be too conspicuous to explain away as the random vagaries of sociological models. On closer scrutiny the findings support the notion that racial isolation, especially over the long term, breeds a cultural inversion that emphasizes violence and other negative behaviors. Anderson’s (1993) ethnographic research demonstrates vividly how young ghetto males, isolated from white mainstream life, and with little hope of obtaining meaningful employment and supporting a family, turn to male peers to help foster an image based on physical prowess and toughness. In linking ghetto-specific beliefs and behavior to the geographic isolation of blacks, Anderson intertwines the micro-level dynamics of ghetto culture with the macro-level dynamics of racial isolation. The findings of this paper support that frame of reference. However, this analysis makes the causal assumption that racial isolation leads to increases in the rates crime. But the reverse may also be true. Namely, rises in neighborhood crime prompts those with the financial resources to leave - - or stay away in the first place. Obviously, personal safety and neighborhood security are prominent factors in the decision to buy a home. But if this is the only link between the two variables (i.e., crime leads to racial isolation), then there are two major problems to reconcile. First, why only violent crime? If crime leads to racial isolation, than serious property crime surely is factored into the same equation. Granted, violence is more fear producing, but the idea that robbery rates make a neighborhood unattractive while high burglary rates do not seems doubtful. Second, why only whites and not middle class blacks? Recalling that class isolation had no link with crime (violent or otherwise), then one must accept the view that middle class blacks fail to respond to issues of personal safety and neighborhood security. This seems dubious as well. Perhaps the more realistic scenario is that a reciprocal causation exists, in which racial isolation raises the rates of crime, which in turns breeds more racial isolation. The third major finding is that after an exhaustive search of these data, no link is observed between class isolation and serious crime. Class isolation, neither in its general form (class isolation) nor in its racially bounded form (black class isolation), had an association with the rates of serious crime. This is not to say that class isolation does not exist. Indeed it does, as these data reveal, especially so in the black dominated areas of the city. To that extent, these results concur with prior evidence that documents the class bifurcation in black America. What is at issue though are the consequences of that class isolation. The multivariate findings may be at odds with the claim that the absence of working and middle class blacks from traditional black communities is a major factor in the social and economic decline of these areas. Perhaps the consequences of black depopulation are overestimated, especially in comparison to other major trends. Despite impressive gains, nonpoor blacks still represent a comparatively small proportion of the total U.S. population. Their limited numbers as well as ongoing discrimination and lingering structural barriers, means that the combined capital of the black working and middle class is relatively modest by any account. It pales in comparison to the combined accumulation among whites. So it seems unlikely that the outmigration of the black working and middle class has the necessary entropy to cause the social and economic catastrophe that has befallen black communities. On the contrary, the reluctance of whites to accept black neighbors - - the driving force behind racial segregation in America - - is what places mainstream life beyond the reach of substantial numbers of urban blacks. The movement of whites away from black areas represents a large-scale redistribution of tax revenue, schools, public utilities, employment opportunities and so forth. By its sheer size and momentum, white flight strips away from black neighborhoods a wide range of resources necessary for a satisfactory social and economic life. Despite the physical distance between poor and nonpoor blacks, the social distance between them might also be overstated. The outmigration of the black middle class perhaps stretched but not completely severed the network ties that bind these communities. Local institutions, such as black churches, may help maintain a web of interpersonal relations that transcends geography, income and social class. Churches, in particular, might serve to blunt the force of social isolation by maintaining the weak ties necessary for social mobility (Granovetter 1995). Research in this area could give structural meaning to the adage that Sunday, with its morning church services, is the most segregated day of the week.

tl:dr Blacks and whites within the same class were imprisoned differently, the justice system is racist at multiple points of intersection regardless of class, and when both class and race were controlled for, segregation of class did not have any impact on crime while the segregation of race did.

It isn't difficult to track social ills back to wealth disparity. Low income area Schools are shitty because they are underfunded. Employment opportunities for people from underfunded schools tend to suck, and a lowsy start makes it less likely to get the further education required for better careers. People with lousy employment opportunities are more likely to suffer from crime or be arrested themselves. Address the wealth disparity and other problems can get addressed.