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This dissertation adopts a quantitative approach to investigate the determinants of residents’ perceptions of neighbourhood crime, focusing specifically on a series of structural factors at the community level, in accordance with the social disorganisation model. Using different statistical models, including correlations, linear regression, multilevel models and spatial regression analyses, and several Spanish data sources, in particular the 2001 Population and Housing Census and a nationally representative survey conducted in 2006, the research confirms the relevance of its exogenous sources in explaining perceived neighbourhood crime. These include classical variables, such as neighbourhoods’ socioeconomic status, residential stability, ethnic diversity, family disruption and degree of urbanisation, but also other features related to the time, skills and resources deployed by residents in their residential areas such as commuting time to work, the number of working hours and the availability of a second home. For its part, other local conditions traditionally associated specifically with perceived neighbourhood crime, such as social incivilities and physical decay, act as mediators of other contextual effects, in particular of the number of retail shops and offices. The research also demonstrates the urban nature of the social disorganisation theory. That is, that the local conditions typically associated with social disorganisation, urban unease and the various social problems that can affect neighbourhoods, are better predictors of residents’ perceptions of crime in town and large cities than in rural areas, operationalized as municipalities of less than 5,000 inhabitants. Small municipalities seem particularly successful in controlling their younger residents for neither the proportion of adolescents and young adults, nor the number of children per family exert an important effect on residents’ perceptions of neighbourhood crime. Among these local conditions, special attention has been devoted to measures of diversity and immigration demonstrating that their effect on residents’ perceptions of neighbourhood crime, except for the positive impact of Asians, is not necessarily robust to different model specifications and statistical methods. This erratic immigrant effect is surprising given how consistent the belief in a crime-immigration nexus is among Spaniards. Precisely on this point, the dissertation has investigated why the belief in a crime-immigration nexus varies significantly between individuals and across communities. Three variables have been identified as determining factors: contextual parochialism, right-wing ideology and the media. In rural areas with high residential stability, a significant presence of elderly population and a low socioeconomic status, residents are more likely to unconsciously associate immigration and crime, even when individual attributes are adjusted for and, more importantly, even if few migrants live in the surroundings. Not surprisingly, right-wing residents are more likely to associate both phenomena yet, in contrast to many statements by scholars and pundits, the media in Spain seems to exert a moderator effect.

This macro-level study examines the effects of social disorganization predictors on violent crime registered in nonmetropolitan areas of Kentucky from 2012 to 2016. The study intends to expand the line of research interested in verifying the applicability of the social disorganization theory (Shaw & McKay, 1942), including its new theoretical developments, to non-urban settings and plans to contribute to the literature willing to provide a better understanding of violent crime in rural areas. In response to Narag et al.’s (2009) call for a theoretical integration of environmental contaminants among the ecological factors that influence variations in crime, the study also examines the effect of potential exposure to lead, seen here as an additional structural disadvantage, which may affect interpersonal violence. The results of a parallel mediation analysis show that for the most part, social disorganization theory has the ability to explain variations in violent crimes occurring in rural areas. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, residential instability, ethnic heterogeneity (percent Blacks), and family disorganization predict higher levels of violent crime. Yet, although poverty has a significant positive indirect effect on violent crime via family disorganization, the total effect of economic disadvantage on violent crime is negative. Exposure to lead contamination in water has only an indirect significant positive effect on violent crime, while potential exposure of lead in old housing does not impact violent crime, as it has been anticipated. Moreover, different from the theoretical expectations, social capital (i.e., church adherence) predicts higher and not lower violent crime rates. The study limitations and the policy implications of the findings are further discussed and recommendation for future research are presented.

This study puts forth a longitudinal model of social disorganization (the true difference model) that examines the effects the causes of social disorganization on the change in homicide and robbery and the effect of the two crimes on three of those causes of social disorganization. This study argues for the replacement of ethnic/racial heterogeneity with racial residential segregation as a cause of social disorganization. It is hypothesized that family disruption will have a weaker relationship with crime as family disruption becomes more normative. This dissertation project tests both a cross-sectional model of social disorganization as well as the true difference model of social disorganization using 75 cities across the United States for the decennial years from 1960 to 2000. The results from the cross-sectional models provide modest support for social disorganization theory. However, there are two interesting patterns found within the cross-sectional models. First, family disruption has an effect on the level of homicide and robbery, in the predicted direction, from 1960 to 1980, but not in 1990 or 2000. This suggests some support for the argument that the effect of family disruption on crime weakens as family disruption becomes more normative. Second, from 1980 to 2000, the isolation index is a better predictor of the level of homicide and robbery than racial heterogeneity. The results from the true difference model of social disorganization indicate that social disorganization theory does not do a good job of predicting the change in crime. The effects of homicide and robbery on the changes in poverty and racial segregation (the dissimilarity index only) are consistent with past work on the effects of crime on structural characteristics. Thus, when looking at the effect of segregation on the level of crime, it appears that the isolation index is a better predictor of crime, but crime appears to affect the uneven distribution of blacks, but not their level of isolation. In conclusion, the utility of social disorganization in predicting the change in crime is questionable, but the use of the social disorganization perspective to study the change in crime should not be dismissed out of hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines three sources of motivation related to the prevalence and frequency of gun carrying: socialization, delinquent activities and fear of victimization. It also integrates the dimension of race as well as a cultural dimension, here operationalized by language, to further understand the issue of gun carrying among juvenile offenders. The observations were made in 1995 on 202 criminally-active juveniles serving time in detention facilities in the province of Quebec, Canada, divided in four groups: French and English-speaking whites and French and English-speaking blacks. Some of the results are similar to American studies which took place in the 1990's indicating a high prevalence of gun carrying among juvenile offenders, regardless of a more restricted access to firearms in Canada; however, the frequency of being armed is lower. It is observed that the concepts of socialization and criminal activity explain in part that gun carrying among young offenders while the concept of fear of victimization is not supported. Young black offenders were more likely to carry guns than whites and French-speaking blacks more than English-speaking blacks. It is suggested that the type of delinquent activity in which they are involved plays an important role in explaining gun carrying. In terms of theory the study raises that it is not only, as the focus of differential association suggests, that delinquency is learned and supported by the association with delinquent peers, but also by Culture conflict, Social disorganization and Symbolic interactionism, at the origin of the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of this century, a voluminous literature has accrued suggesting the importance of social disorganization as an explanatory mechanism underpinning differential rates of crime and violence between and within communities. Yet, the relevance of the social disorganization perspective for explaining the violent behavior of persons with mental illnesses has not been addressed. To explore this issue, this project applied social disorganization theory to the study of violence among a sample of individuals recently treated and discharged from a Pittsburgh psychiatric hospital. The purpose of the study was to assess whether neighborhood social disorganization explained variation in the violent behavior of discharged psychiatric patients, over and above the effects of their individual characteristics, and to assess whether social disorganization conditioned the effects of individual risk factors. To accomplish this purpose, this project brought together individual- level data from the Pittsburgh site of the MacArthur Foundation's Violence Risk Assessment Study-the largest study of risk factors for violence among discharged psychiatric patients ever conducted-with aggregate data on the characteristics of the neighborhoods in which patients resided after discharge-gathered from 1990 U.S. Census Summary Tape Files. Using a variety of analytic techniques, the following results were obtained: (1) neighborhood disadvantage was found to have a significant positive effect on patient violence over and above the effects of significant individual-level risk factors and control variables; (2) neighborhood mobility was found not to be statistically related to patient violence; (3) neighborhood measures accounted for less of the explained variation in patient violence than did the individual-level predictors; (4) no evidence of concentration effects was found in the relationship between neighborhood social disorganization and patient violence; (5) individual-level social support did not mediate the relationship between neighborhood conditions and patient violence; and (6) the effects of substance abuse and paranoid disorders were found not to interact with levels of individual-level social support (or neighborhood social disorganization) in their relationship with patient violence. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the reporting of crime in terms of conflict theory and social disorganization theory. Conflict theory has suggested that 'threatening' conditions lead to increased coercion on the part of the criminal justice system. The process through which this increased coercion is brought about, however, has not been made clear. Since the reporting of crime may be one of the most discretionary decisions in the criminal justice system, the question is raised as to whether conditions traditionally considered 'threatening' (percent non-white, income inequality and lack of racial segregation) affect citizens' decisions to report a crime. Social disorganization theory is also discussed as a possible theoretical explanation for differences in reporting of crime. Although social disorganization has traditionally been used as an etiological theory of crime, it is discussed here as a theory of reactions to crime. It is suggested that in socially disorganized communities, informal social control is weakened, and citizens will be more likely to use formal mechanisms of crime control, and report crimes more frequently. These theories are examined in relation to the reporting of three crimes: robbery, burglary, and assault. The data are from both the city sample and the national sample of the National Crime Survey. Analysis of the city data used reporting rates disaggregated by race and income categories. Little support for either theory was found at the city level. Although percent non-white was significantly and positively related to the reporting of both robbery and burglary, the hypothesis generated from conflict theory suggested that this effect would only be found in the reporting rates of whites, and this was not the case. The only social disorganization variable found to be related to reporting at the city level, in the predicted manner, was density, and that was only for assault. The national data were used to perform contextual analyses of neighborhood characteristics on individual decisions to report a crime. Results from these analyses are mixed, but strong support for a conflict interpretation of the reporting of crime emerges from the assault equations (in terms of percent non-white), and there is some support for a social disorganization explanation in terms of the effects of poverty on the reporting of assault. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the dissertation is to examine reciprocal effects between crime rates and social disorganization using data for 60 urban neighborhoods. To measure social disorganization, I use one survey item that asks respondents how frequently they, or any member of their household, get together with neighbors either in the neighbors' or their own home. Since the literature does not provide clear guidance, I operationalize social disorganization as the percentage of neighborhood residents that interact with their neighbors daily, once a week or more, several times a month or more, once a month or more, and once a year or more. I use each measure of social interaction in subsequent analysis. In Chapter 5, Regression analyses indicate, after controlling for ecological variables, that measures of social interaction that reflect relatively infrequent social interaction among a relatively large proportion of the neighborhood population have strong negative effects on burglary, motor vehicle theft, and robbery rates. I argue that social networks based on infrequent social interaction among a large percentage of the population create effective informal social controls on the behavior of neighborhood residents and thus reduce crime. In Chapter 6, I turn the models around and examine the effects of crime on social interaction. The results indicate that burglary and robbery significantly reduce social interaction when the social interaction measure reflects relatively infrequent social interaction among a large percentage of the population. I argue that residents engaged in social networks based on infrequent social interaction are likely to reduce their involvement in these networks when the threat from crime is high because the networks are not essential for their day to day survival. In Chapter 7, I examine feedback loops among crime, fear of crime, and the social interaction measures. The results indicate that neighborhood feedback loops are operative when the social interaction measure reflects infrequent social interaction among a relatively large percentage of the population. However, the results must be interpreted cautiously because the models are somewhat sensitive to the inclusion of additional variables. I conclude that results from the analyses provide reasonable support for the social disorganization and consequences of crime perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is an empirical test of the disorganization theory in a disaster situation. The specific event is the 1976 earthquake in the city of Tangshan, China. The disorganization caused by the disaster, as well as the reorganization developed by government recovery projects, are examined by a retrospective survey data. Measurements of disorganization and reorganization consist of three dimensions: community, family and individual. Four types of crime were concerned: mass looting, individual theft, mass violence, and individual violence. I found that mass looting is the most common offense in the disaster situation, and the normative inconsistence at the community dimension is the most important variable to explain mass looting increases at the time of the disaster and mass looting decreases after the disaster; that the disruption of neighborhood organization (resident committee) contributes to an increase in mass looting at the time of the earthquake and that the rapid recovery of work organization after the earthquake controls for mass looting. The analyses suggest that any establishment of temporary rules in a disaster must be careful because it might result in normative confusion and conflict; and that a recovering work unit is critical for controlling mass looting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this case study was to analyze the spatial distribution patterns of the residences of registered sex offenders in Pulaski County, Arkansas to determine the impact of state enforced residence restrictions. Density and clustering factors were used to identify census tracts of the study area with high and low concentrations of offenders. These zones were then compared to identify which characteristics were similar and dissimilar between high and low concentration zones. The results indicate that there is a non-random distribution of registered sex offenders in the study area. The findings also indicate that the residence restrictions placed on high-level offenders do impact their spatial distribution causing clustering in areas of high social disorganization and low social control. The recommendations and implications indicate that current legislation regarding the registration, community notification and residence restrictions of sex offenders are not efficacious and are therefore not justified by this research.

The purpose of the present study was to gain a better understanding of assaults on law enforcement officers to identify correlations and spatial concentrations related to theoretical constructs of social disorganization. The present study was based on official assault on law enforcement officer data from a major metropolitan area within a southeastern state for the years 2010-2019. In addition to bivariate and multivariate statistical testing (e.g., Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression), multiple spatial analyses were utilized to understand the statistical significance, visualize results, and compare to previous theoretical explanations of crime concentration. The findings revealed that assaults on law enforcement officers are spatially concentrated in census tracts in the downtown urban core that exhibit indicators of social disorganization. More specifically, assaults on law enforcement officers are spatially concentrated within downtown urban core areas with high levels of the following characteristics of social disorganization: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit receivership, vacant housing units, and disrupted families.

Prevalence of nonmedical use of prescription drugs (NMUPD) has risen dramatically during the past two decades. Studies meeting the demand for empirical research on this phenomenon have mainly identified individual-level drivers of NMUPD. While such identification assists in understanding these trends, few studies have considered the social drivers of NMUPD. This is surprising given 1) prevalence varies according to neighborhood type (i.e., rural, urban, suburban) and 2) the wealth of empirical and theoretical literature connecting social factors to health behaviors, deviant behavior, and use of other illicit substances. The goal of this dissertation is to situate the NMUPD as a social problem by investigating its structural sources and social determinants. I use social disorganization theory (Sampson and Groves 1989; Shaw and McKay 1942) and associated “neighborhood effects” frameworks (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993; Gephart 1997; Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn 2000), to frame the NMUPD epidemic as a product of social-structural (i.e., macro) forces that are mitigated by community-level mechanisms. Using two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), I generate logistic regression models testing the effects of macro-level predictors on individual odds of NMUPD, as well as the intervening roles of collective efficacy (Fagan, Wright, and Pinchevsky 2014; Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls 1997; Theall et al. 2009), depressive symptoms (Aneshensel and Sucoff 1996; Ross 2000), and access to healthcare (Browning and Cagney 2002; Ross and Mirowsky 2001) in this relationship. Findings highlight the neighborhood context as a source of variation in NMUPD. Results indicate that living in a disorganized neighborhood is associated with increased odds of engaging in NMUPD and highlight neighborhood residential instability as an important risk factor. Further analyses reveal that this association is stratified, with female residents bearing the most substantial risk for NMUPD associated with living in a disorganized neighborhood. The dissertation address the structural basis of individual NMUPD with implications for extending theory and informing public policy.

Relatively low rates of homicide solvability results in law-abiding citizens being forced to co-exist with known murderers, which is detrimental to a community’s psyche. This condition happens disproportionately in neighborhoods where crime is high, cohesiveness among its members is weak, and the citizen/police relationship is little or non-existent. This research sought to understand this phenomenon by asking,” How can murder solvability rates improve in marginalized communities?” and employing four theoretical lenses. Using the city of New Orleans as a case study and holding Social Disorganization Theory constant, Spiral of Silence, Habitus, and Dramaturgy were utilized in an attempt to understand individuals who witness violent crime but do not come forward. From these theories, nine assumptions were formed, connecting the literature to this specific area of inquiry. Using a mixed methods approach both qualitative and quantitative data was collected within New Orleans from a variety of instruments: a survey (both web-based and in-person), a questionnaire and two deliberative forums. Utilizing the questionnaire and in conjunction with the Kettering Foundation and the National Issues Forum Institute (NIFI), this research was also able to quantitatively compare New Orleans data with data collected nationally by NIFI. While the data collected support all nine assumptions, five of the nine account for 82% of the data. Of these five, none originated from the Spiral of Silence theory, two originated from the Habitus theory, and three originated from the Dramaturgy theory.

Using individual-level survey, and neighborhood-level contextual and social observation data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A. FANS), I extend social disorganization theory by examining the role of fear in understanding the link between neighborhood structure, collective efficacy, and crime. Results indicate that the association between social cohesion and informal control is weakened in neighborhoods with high levels of resident fear. Fear is significantly associated with decreased community efficacy, and it both mediates and moderates the effect of neighborhood disadvantage and disorder on efficacy. Further, the utility of collective efficacy to protect against the effects of adverse neighborhood conditions on crime is compromised in fearful communities. When neighborhood fear is considered, neither collective efficacy nor neighborhood concentrated disadvantage are associated with neighborhood robbery victimization. Fear, however, remains one of the primary correlates of neighborhood robbery victimization. These findings suggest that future research should incorporate resident fear in order to better understand the character and context of neighborhood organization. Without considering neighborhood-level fear, research ignores a key mechanism contributing to both community efficacy and the utility of collective efficacy to ameliorate the damaging effects of adverse neighborhood conditions. Advisor: Tara D. Warner.

Prior research on terrorism has argued that local law enforcement play an important role in counterterrorism though the mechanisms by which the police should prevent terrorism are empirically unsettled and atheoretical in nature. Even less understood is how policing might differentially impact terrorism across specific ideological movements (e.g., far-right, environmental, Islamic extremism). Drawing from prominent sociological and criminological theories (i.e., Environmental perspectives, Social Disorganization, Conflict/Marxist) the current study addresses several key gaps in prior literature by utilizing data from the American Terrorism Study (ATS) paired with data from the FBI Uniform Crime Report and U.S. Census Bureau. Results suggest that counties with greater police presence and heavier officer workloads are associated with greater likelihood of terrorism, for terrorism overall and also equally across unique ideological movements, net of key controls. These findings have strong theoretical implications for the study of terrorism outcomes going forward. Additional implications for policy and future research are discussed.

This work is research to explore the association of spatial patterns between crime and socioeconomic status (SES) through the use of self-organized maps (SOM). It had been found that the spatial patterns of crime could be associated with those of socioeconomic, and this work sought to further these analyses in order to better understand how crime patterns and SES were related. To explore this association, patterns of crime and SES were examined in three cities: Nashville, TN; Portland, OR; and Tucson, AZ. Three SOMs were used in each city: one to analyze the patterns of crime, a second to analyze the patterns of SES, and a third to analyze the patterns of crime and SES. Nodes from each of these SOMs were also mapped to analyze the geographic distribution of their associated tracts. The results found an association between the patterns of crime and SES. In the Nashville Case Study, the patterns of high crime and low SES were not clearly associated in the combined Crime-SES SOM, but a stronger association was found in the geographic analysis. In the Portland Case Study, high crime and low SES patterns were found to be associated in the SOM. In the Tucson Case Study, high crime was found to be associated with low SES, but low SES was not always found to be associated with high crime. In each case study, the spatial patterns of low crime and high SES were found to be strongly associated. The spatial patterns of high crime were found to be associated with those of low SES, but the spatial patterns of low SES were not always found to be the same as those of high crime.

Extant research on gender stratification suggests that women’s aggregate socioeconomic resources influence various outcomes related to women’s well-being. These studies primarily have focused on women’s resources and outcomes only at higher levels of aggregation, such as the metropolitan, state, or country. But it remains unknown how women’s aggregate resources at the neighborhood level may be influential. This omission precludes a comprehensive understanding of the contextual risks women face. Indeed, a parallel literature suggests that features of the residential neighborhood are associated with several outcomes related to crime, health, and risk behaviors. Within this concentration, considerable scholarship focuses on the consequences of aggregate socioeconomic resources in the neighborhood. But neighborhood research has neglected the gender distribution of these resources. In this dissertation I address these limitations by bridging macro-level approaches to gender stratification with the theories and methods that are more common to neighborhood research; namely, I draw from Blumberg’s theory of gender stratification, neighborhood theories of social disorganization, and hierarchical (generalized) linear modeling techniques.In three essays I present quantitative analyses that explore the protective influences of women’s neighborhood socioeconomic resources relative to men’s on outcomes related to a woman’s risk of intimate partner violent (IPV) victimization, and perceptions that social disorder in the neighborhood is problematic. The multilevel analyses in each essay are based on survey data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) as well as administrative data from the 1990 Census and Homicides in Chicago.First, I examine the independent and combined influences of women’s relative resources and collective efficacy on a woman’s risk of victimization by a spouse or cohabiting partner (IPV risk). I find collective efficacy is not significantly associated with IPV risk at very low levels of women's relative neighborhood resources, but becomes increasingly protective against IPV risk at higher levels of women's relative neighborhood resources. Second, I investigate a woman’s over-time risk of IPV victimization relative to the risks of relationship dissolution and relationship continuation without IPV. Findings from multinomial models suggest that a woman's personal income exhibits both positive and negative associations with the relative risk of subsequent IPV. These associations are conditional on the level of women's relative neighborhood resources.Third, I examine how women’s relative resources in the broader neighborhood context shape perceptions of behavioral cues related to social disorder within the immediate residential neighborhood. I find that women perceive observed social disorder cues as less problematic when they reside in neighborhoods characterized by higher levels of women’s relative resources.This research builds on the literatures on gender stratification, intimate partner violence, and neighborhood effects by considering a factor overlooked by previous quantitative studies—women's relative resources at the neighborhood level. I find that gender stratification in the neighborhood modifies how individual and contextual factors influence outcomes important to women's well-being. More broadly, my dissertation underscores the importance of considering how neighborhood social group cleavages shape local social organizational processes, individual risk factors, and interpretations of neighborhood conditions.

Utilizing a Criminal Event Perspective, the analyses of this dissertation test a variety of relationships to the dependent variable: the Criminal Lethality Index. Data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System, the Census and American Community Survey, the American Trauma Society, and data derived from the Census’s mapping TIGER files are combined to create a database of 190 cities. This database is used to test road network connectivity (Gama Index), medical resources, criminal covariates and Social Disorganization variables in relation to a city’s Criminal Lethality Index. OLS regression demonstrates a significant and negative relationship between a city’s Gama Index and its Criminal Lethality Index. In addition, percent male, percent black, median income and percent of the population employed in diagnosing and treating medical professions were all consistently positively related to Criminal Lethality. The percent of males 16 to 24, percent of single parent households, and Concentrated Disadvantage Index were all consistently and negatively related to Criminal Lethality. Given these surprising results, additional diagnostic regressions are run using more traditional dependent variables such as the number of murders in a city and the proportion of aggravated assaults with major injuries per 100,000 population. These reveal the idiosyncratic nature of utilizing the Criminal Lethality Index. This dependent variable has proven useful in some circumstances and counterintuitive in others. The source of the seemingly unintuitive results is the fact that certain factors only reduce murders but many factors impact both murder and aggravated assaults, thereby creating difficultly when trying to predict patterns in Criminal Lethality

The current study examines firearms’ impact on the relationship between illegal drug markets and homicide. At the county-level, Iowa and Virginia are analyzed using crime data from the National Incident Based Reporting System. More specifically, gun availability is tested as a mediator for county drug crime rates and homicide counts. Variable selection and prediction is based on routine activity and social disorganization theories. I argue that social disorganization allows the context for which criminal opportunity presents itself through routine activities. I posit gun availability mediates a positive relationship between illegal drug markets and homicide, with differences between urban and rural communities

Organized crime and terrorism taking place in the Turkish provinces get more attention in the public agenda than other type of crimes. Although property crimes receive less attention, they pose a serious threat to public order and the social welfare of Turkish society. Academic researchers have also paid little attention to the analysis of property crimes at the macro level in Turkey. For these reasons, this study focused on the analysis of property crimes for three years period, 2005, 2006 and 2007 in Turkey, using a conceptual model of social disorganization. Provincial level data from Turkish governmental agencies were used. The findings of multivariate analyses showed that social disorganization approach, as measured in this study, provided a partial explanation of property crime rates in Turkey. Family disruption and urbanization had significant effects on property crime rate, while remaining exogenous elements of social disorganization (i.e., SES, population heterogeneity and residential mobility) did not have any expected effects. In mediation analysis, using faith-based engagement and political participation rates as mediators between the structural factors of social disorganization and property crime rate provided marginal support for the theory. Political participation rate partially mediated the relationship between property crime rate and urbanization rate, while faith-based engagement rate did not mediate the effects of social disorganization variables on property crime rate. These findings were consistent with the findings of research that has been completed in other nations, and made a unique contribution to the Turkish research on crime.

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this thesis is to investigate the role architecture plays in both causing and ameliorating cycles of crime and punishment. To accomplish this task, the study combines an investigation of historical prison typologies, with an investigation into the philosophical and ethical questions surrounding the practice of imprisonment itself, as well as in depth sociological and criminological studies of the ways in which crime and incarceration affect the health of communities over time.  It then employs the tools and conclusions of these studies to investigate the change over time in a singe community in North Memphis, Tennessee from its roots as a thriving, multi-racial industrial hub to a community defined by endemic crime, poverty, and violence and, finally, to suggest a way to improve the health of the community through the prison system itself. The study concludes that the prison system as it currently exists must undergo a fundamental philosophical and physical change in order to actually meet the goals of reducing crime and improving community health for which it was intended. To that end, the thesis suggests a vision of an incarceration facility for a single community in North Memphis that uses architecture as a vehicle to instrumentalize the key emotion that defines imprisonment -- how to escape from it -- in order to reconcile prisoners back to the communities they have offended.

This dissertation examines the relationship between social structural factors and violent crime rates in Turkey. The relationship between social structural characteristics and violent crime is worth exploring in areas that have attracted little academic attention, such as violent crime in Turkey. In order to understand and prevent the occurrence of crime, researchers have long investigated possible factors related to crime. Examining how crime varies across different regions can help us to understand underlying reasons for violent crime, which is considered one of the enduring problems in society. The findings of this research, to some extent, support the assumptions of social disorganization theory regarding the distribution of violent crime. Both the findings of multivariate and bivariate analysis indicated that poverty, unemployment, and family disruptions may have a positive effect on the distribution of violent crime in the cities of Turkey. The analysis of the effects of the social structure variables through the mediating variables, such as religious institutions, libraries and voluntary associations on the number of violent crimes and violent criminals, to some extent, support the tenets of social disorganization theory. However, all mediating variables cannot mediate all the indirect effects of social structural covariates. In brief, none of their indirect impacts on the social structural variables on the outcome variable was significant via mediating variables.

This study uses qualitative methodology to examine the contributions of Non-Governmental Organizations in response to the conditions of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in Kano metropolis. The study investigates what these organizations do, what methods, techniques, and strategies they employ to identify the causes of OVC's conditions for intervention. The study acknowledges colonization, globalization, poverty, illiteracy, and individualism as contributing factors to OVC's conditions. However, essentially, the study identifies gross misunderstanding between paternal and maternal relatives of children to be the main factor responsible for the OVC's conditions. This social disorganization puts the children in difficult conditions including exposure to health, educational, moral, emotional, psychological, and social problems. The thesis concludes that through "collective efficacy" the studied organizations are a perfect means for solving-problem. The associations operate on existing family structures, cement relationships, provide social networking among the contending relatives, and most importantly positively impacting the lives of the OVC.

Violence against police officers is a major problem in America. Previous studies on violence and police officers have usually focused on violence by police officers, not violence against police officers. This study is the first of its kind as it examines violence against police officers from a comprehensive, criminal events perspective with detailed use of force/officer violence data collected by the Orlando Police Department. Individual officer characteristics, individual offender characteristics, situational variables, and geographical factors are considered. Logistic regression results indicate that use of force incidents are more likely to involve battery against one or more police officers when multiple officers are involved, when offenders are female, when offenders are of larger size (measured by weight), and when offenders are known to have recently consumed alcohol before the incident. Spatial analysis results indicate that there is significant clustering of batteries against police officers within the City of Orlando, and that the areas where police battery is predominant are very similar to areas where alcohol-related businesses are prevalent, and theoretically, more alcohol is consumed. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.

This study examines the role of a community or place in the social control of crime. The objectives of this study are to answer questions of the where, the why and the how of crime rate variations in rural communities, and if these are associated with different degrees or levels of social control. For the purpose of this dissertation, a community or place is defined as a locality where people interact with each other and share, at least to some extent, a common identity. This study uses a macro-level perspective to study rural community and crime. The unit of analysis is the county, which serves as a proxy for community. It is assumed that county-level social structural and socioeconomic characteristics determine its social integration and social control. Following the tradition of social disorganization theory originating from Shaw and McKay, five macro-level social structural and socioeconomic status characteristics are employed and tested. Social disorganization theory argues that crime is associated with social structural and socioeconomic characteristics that negate or reduce the ability of local groups and individuals to control criminal behavior. This study focuses both on the spatial and temporal differences of nonmetropolitan counties and its consequence for variations in crime rates.A sample of 1,541 nonmetropolitian counties is used in this study. Data of county crime rates is obtained from the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) of FBI. Data of county social structural and socioeconomic characteristics is obtained from the 1990 and 2000 Census of the Population. The Rural-Urban Continuum Codes come from the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the United States of Department of Agriculture, which provides information for the classification of metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties. This study adopts multiple regression and structural equation model analyses to test various hypotheses.There are several findings:(1) We confirmed that social disorganization perspective to some extent is useful for explaining variations in the crime rates of nonmetropolitan counties. (2) The variation in crime rates among nonmetropolitan counties varies with the differences in their social structural and socioeconomic dimensions.(3) Temporal changes in social structure and socioeconomic characteristics can explain variations in crime rates among nonmetropolitan counties. (4) The consequence of spatial geographical influence of metropolitan counties on the social integration or social control of crime in nonmetropolitan counties varies by the latter’s degree of rurality. The crime rates of more rural nonmetropolitan counties are affected to a greater degree by proximity to a metropolitan area than the crime rates of micropolitan counties proximate to metro areas.(5) Social structural characteristics, such as family disruption, have a larger effect on the control of crime than socioeconomic status factors of nonmetropolitan counties.

Though it has produced a high quality body of research, the study of substance use has remained highly individualized in its focus. This dissertation adds a sociological understanding to that research. A review of theories within sociology, particularly neoinstitutionalism, and within criminology, particularly social disorganization and strain theory, points to the conclusion that both national legal culture and local structural factors should not be overlooked in studies of substance use. This approach is particularly fruitful in law and criminal justice, where much differentiation exists among nations in the enforcement of laws. Using hierarchical models, the following explores individual level substance use and opinions about drug policy using variation at three levels, taking into account individual characteristics, local context, and national legal culture. Two main findings emerge from these models. First, national level legal context plays a role in understanding individual level probabilities of substance use and opinions on drug policy, even after controlling for individual and local characteristics. Second, the effects of the components of theories on the ecology of crime, namely social disorganization and strain theory, depend on the characteristics of the individuals that are experiencing them. Both levels of these contextual effects more firmly root the study of substance use, and crime more generally, in debates within sociology.

This paper is a partial and exploratory test of Bernard’s (1990) theory of angry aggression within disadvantaged communities as well as Agnew’s (1999) community-level strain theory. These theories posit that disadvantage and other structural characteristics of neighborhoods lead to environmental stressors, which ultimately may increase anger among individuals who externalize attributions of blame. To date, no study has assessed whether structural characteristics of neighborhoods are related to increased individual anger. Using Ross and Britt’s (1995) survey of Community, Crime, and Health: Illinois Residents, I assess Bernard’s (1990) and Agnew’s (1999) theoretical arguments. The findings show that only one structural indicator measured at the census tract level, urban location, is related to the individual outcome of anger. However, the stressors assessed in this study are positively related to anger, particularly among individuals who externalize blame. There are two main implications of these findings. (1) Community crime models should include measures of emotions such as anger, as community processes have psychological impacts on individuals that may motivate them to commit criminal acts. (2) The structural indicators identified by Bernard (1990) and Agnew (1999) require reevaluation, as only urban location was shown to be related to anger.

The primary focus of this study is to explore the relationship between structural factors of a specific society and occurrence of terror related crimes. Accordingly, the objective of this study is to examine how or to what extent social disorganization theory, which is the basic theoretical foundation of this study, can explain terrorism related crimes in Turkey. Although several previous studies investigated the social and structural dimensions of terrorism in a country, many of those studies did not go beyond investigating the impacts of traditional structural factors such as poverty, inequality, and education on terrorism. This study goes a step further by adding the mediating factors between those primary social disorganization variables and terror related crimes. Direct, indirect and, total effects of structural variables on terrorism through the mediating variables, that is prevalence of voluntary associations and religious institutions, are examined. Findings obtained from multivariate and mediation analyses show that while some structural variables such as education and poverty are directly related to distribution of terror related crimes, this relationship became indirect through the mediating variables for other structural variables such as residential mobility and unemployment. Results suggest that rather than overreliance on traditional antiterrorism strategies which are mostly depending on the public level control such as law enforcement process, programs supported by other levels of social control, that is, parochial and private levels must be encouraged.

Most research regarding intimate partner violence has focused on the individual- and couple-level predictors of violence between partners. Recent research endeavors, however, indicate that neighborhood characteristics may also influence intimate partner violence and may best be explored under the social disorganization tradition. Largely due to data limitations, previous analyses assessing potential neighborhood effects on partner violence have not used hierarchical statistical modeling, nor have they assessed the effects of social intervening mechanisms postulated under social disorganization to affect neighborhood crime. Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, this dissertation addresses these shortcomings by using hierarchical statistical modeling to examine the effects of neighborhood structural characteristics as well as the intervening social mechanisms of collective efficacy, social ties, culture, and disorder on intimate partner violence victimization among females.Results indicate that partner violence is not solely an individual-level phenomenon, and that the mechanisms identified by social disorganization theory appear to explain neighborhood influences on intimate partner violence. In particular, neighborhood concentrated immigration, collective efficacy, social ties and satisfaction with police reduced violence between partners while concentrated disadvantage, legal cynicism, and physical disorder increased such violence. In all, this study demonstrates that social disorganization theory can be applied to non-street forms of violence, such as intimate partner violence.

According to social disorganization and systemic theories, crime will flourish in areas with high residential mobility, low socioeconomic status, high racial heterogeneity, and high rates of family disruption. Essentially, these theories posit that these forms of structural disadvantage weaken the ability of local residents to achieve mutual goals and solve neighborhood problems, thereby resulting in high crime rates. Several studies have examined the utility of the social disorganization tradition for understanding macro-level variation in crime rates, particularly across neighborhoods. I review this research and propose three ways in which the literature can be extended. First, it is necessary to consider more critically the correspondence between the theoretical and empirical definition of what constitutes a neighborhood rather than relying on the convenience of data for empirical definitions. Second, empirical research should account for the fact that local neighborhoods are not immune to the structural conditions of surrounding areas. Finally, researchers should be more cognizant of whether the effects of neighborhood characteristics influence violent and property crimes similarly. Using data from seventy-four neighborhoods bounded by cultural and historical lines in St. Louis, my analyses speak to each of these issues indicating that both violent and property crime rates are predicted by population turnover and structural disadvantage. Thus, this analysis demonstrated no need for crime-specific models of social disorganization.

The United States currently provides a health care system that is neither efficient nor equitable. Despite outspending the world on health care, over three-fourths of developed countries produce better health outcomes (Auerbach et al., 2000). Simultaneously, the "Ecological School of Thought" has documented the large impact that social, economic, and environmental circumstances play in health outcomes. Unfortunately, these 'ecological" studies are frequently conducted without theoretical justification, and rely solely on a cross-sectional research design and a myriad of unrelated variables. This study represents an important step towards the development of a true theory of "ecology". More specifically, we argue that the adversity associated with socio-economic disadvantage, social disorganization, and a lack of health care resources, leads to adverse health outcomes, represented by sentinel health events. This research employs both a cross-sectional (2000) and longitudinal designs (1990 - 2000) to assess the antecedents of sentinel health events in 309 United States counties. Structural Equation Modeling was the statistical technique employed in the study. Findings revealed that socioeconomic disadvantage remains a primary contributor to sentinel health. Indeed the economic growth between 1990 and 2000 was associated with increased rates of sentinel health events. Social disorganization was identified as a primary contributor to sentinel health events at a specific time point (2000), but was not significant over time (1990 -2000). Conversely, the inadequacy of health care resources was non-significant in the cross-sectional model (2000), but significant in the longitudinal model (1990 -2000). In both models, racial characteristics were fundamentally linked to ecological predictors of health We found support for the notion that sentinel health events would be reduced through economic equity and the development of healthy environments where community ties are reinforced. Less support is found for saturating given geographical areas with health care resources in order to reduce sentinel health events. Future research should be directed by the theoretical advancements made by this study. More specifically, future studies should examine independent cross-level effects, that is, through the inclusion of behavior variables as mediating factors for ecological constructs.

The purpose of the current analysis is to look at both individual and contextual predictors of perceived risk of victimization. Specifically, the present work builds directly on the contributions of Rountree and Land (1996) and goes beyond their work in several ways. The current work includes additional census tract measures and redefines a key concept index. Drawing upon routine activity theory, social disorganization theory, and social disorder theory, the current analysis includes individual, neighborhood, and census tract level predictors of perceived risk. Data collected on neighborhood characteristics and crime rates in Seattle, Washington in 1990 are used. Using a multi-stage sampling design, 5,302 individuals were surveyed. Multinomial logistic regression is used in this analysis. General support is found for routine activity theory, social disorganization theory, and social disorder theory. Most notable, however, support is found for including census tract level measures. Suggestions for future research are discussed.

This study investigates the concept of criminality of place, specifically considering residential theft (i.e., residential burglary and residential larceny). By utilizing official police records, this study examined the spatial distribution of theft across residential locations in a large, Midwestern city. Land parcel level analyses were conducted using geographic information systems (GIS), tabular analyses, logistic regression, and a spatial-scan statistic. The results showed that not only were thefts not uniformly distributed among residential locations, but that a few locations (less than five percent) were responsible for most of the thefts reported to the police. Further, the spatial-scan statistic analysis indicated that that risk of residential theft is significantly clustered at relatively few places and the non-random distribution is likely due to some underlying risk factors. Finally, this study then examined the characteristics of these locations to determine whether elements of social disorganization, routine activities or an integrated theory perspective resulted in the prediction of these high theft incident locations. The results showed that a combined model had more predictive ability than either theory alone.

Ecological studies of crime explore how crime and delinquency are distributed within a geographical area. The most famous of these studies was done by Shaw and McKay (1942). The present study analyzes juvenile incarceration data by geographic location, measures of social disorganization, gender and race for the years 1993, 1994, and 1995 for each county and independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Regression analysis indicated that a rural/urban difference does not exist for all incarceration categories used in the study. When the control measure of arrest rate was added to the regression, no rural/urban difference was found. The percent non-white yielded the only consistently significant variable related to incarceration rates, except female incarceration for which no independent variable was found to have a significant relationship.