Search

This article reviews three recently published books on rural criminology. "Crime and Safety in the Rural: Lessons from Research" by Ceccato and Abraham provides an international synthesis of rural literature, highlighting the importance of studying crime and safety in rural areas. "Rural Transformations and Rural Crime: International Critical Perspectives in Rural Criminology" edited by Bowden and Harkness explores the impact of rural transformations on safety and security. "Woman Abuse in Rural Places" by DeKeseredy focuses on violence against women in rural areas, challenging the notion of social disorganization theory. These books contribute to the growing field of rural crime and justice studies, which has become more diverse, critical, and international in the 21st century. [Extracted from the article]

Amanda Holt's book "Family Criminology" offers a unique and significant perspective on the relationship between families and crime. Holt, an expert in the field with a multidisciplinary background, explores the intricate dynamics of family criminology and its impact on societal factors. The book is structured into nine chapters, each focusing on different aspects of family criminology, including family structure, crime within families, and families as victims of crime. Holt utilizes various theoretical frameworks and provides practical cases and methodological challenges to enhance readers' understanding. The book's contributions include a shift in focus towards the role of family in criminology, a multidimensional perspective on crime and family, and insights into the impact of crime on families. However, the book has limitations in terms of its global focus, reliance on secondary data, and lack of attention to nontraditional family structures, economic crimes, and the influence of technology. Overall, "Family Criminology" is a significant contribution to the field of criminology, offering valuable insights for researchers and policymakers. [Extracted from the article]

Shaw and McKay advanced social disorganization theory in the 1930s, kick-starting a large body of research on communities and crime. Studies emphasize individual impacts of poverty, residential instability, and racial/ethnic heterogeneity by examining their independent effects on crime, adopting a variable-centered approach. We use a “neighborhood-centered” approach that considers how structural forces combine into unique constellations that vary across communities, with consequences for crime. Examining neighborhoods in Southern California we: (1) identify neighborhood typologies based on levels of poverty, instability, and heterogeneity; (2) explore how these typologies fit within a disorganization framework and are spatially distributed across the region; and (3) examine how these typologies are differentially associated with crime. Results reveal nine neighborhood types with varying relationships to crime.

Whereas existing ecology of crime research frequently uses a cross-sectional design, an open question is whether theories underlying such studies will operate similarly in longitudinal research. Using latent trajectory models and longitudinal data in half-mile egohoods from the Southern California region over a 10-year period (2000–2010), we explore this question and assess whether the changes in key measures of social disorganization theory are related to changes in violent or property crime through three possible relationships: 1) a monotonic relationship, 2) an asymmetric relationship, and 3) a perturbation relationship in which any change increases crime. We find evidence that measures can exhibit any of these three possible relationships, highlighting the importance of not assuming monotonic relationships. Most frequently observed are asymmetric relationships, which we posit are simultaneously capturing more than one theoretical process of neighborhoods and crime. Specific findings include asymmetric relationships between change in concentrated disadvantage, racial/ethnic minority composition, or population and violent crime, as well as relationships between change in Asian composition or population and property crime. We consider how this strategy opens a needed area of future research assessing how measures for other theories operate as environments change.

Shaw and McKay advanced social disorganization theory in the 1930s, kick-starting a large body of research on communities and crime. Studies emphasize individual impacts of poverty, residential instability, and racial/ethnic heterogeneity by examining their independent effects on crime, adopting a variable-centered approach. We use a “neighborhood-centered” approach that considers how structural forces combine into unique constellations that vary across communities, with consequences for crime. Examining neighborhoods in Southern California we: (1) identify neighborhood typologies based on levels of poverty, instability, and heterogeneity; (2) explore how these typologies fit within a disorganization framework and are spatially distributed across the region; and (3) examine how these typologies are differentially associated with crime. Results reveal nine neighborhood types with varying relationships to crime.

Using survey data from a sample of 1,435 Ukrainian and Russian adults, this study examines the interplay between collective processes, individual-level self-control, and offending. Multilevel regression models estimate the direct effects of neighborhood-level self-control, perceptions of sanction risks, and strain on criminal behavior, showing how these contextual factors condition the association between individual-level self-control and offending. Findings suggest that collective self-control and perceived sanction risks are important moderators of the self-control–crime relationship at the individual level, highlighting the protective effect of high self-control on offending in neighborhoods with strong collective self-control and sanctioning climates. Overall, the study stresses the importance of exploring the role of neighborhood processes beyond social disorganization in the self-control–crime nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Routine activities theory has been the most widely used framework to analyse the relationship between tourism and crime. But beyond crime opportunity, other ecological and structural factors may be present in this relationship. This article analyses whether high levels of tourist intensity are related to higher levels of urban crime in Barcelona (Spain) using the variables of social disorganization theory, that is, concentration of disadvantages, population turnover and ethnic-cultural heterogeneity. Under the hypothesis that the touristification of Barcelona neighbourhoods intensifies population turnover and enhances economical and ethnic-cultural heterogeneity in the area, it is expected that higher levels of tourism are related to higher rates of property and personal crime. To test this hypothesis and the mediating role of ecological variables, negative binomial fit models and simple mediation regression models are used. Findings suggest that higher levels of tourism are related to a higher volume of property and violent crimes in neighbourhoods and that this relationship is mediated by residential instability and national heterogeneity. However, mediation models suggest a negative relationship between tourism and crime when concentrated disadvantages are the mediator factor. The need to rethink the role of the socioeconomic variable in the relationship between crime and touristification is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decades of research into social disorganization theory, criminologists have made little progress developing community programs that reduce crime. The lack of progress is due in part to faulty assumptions in the theory: that neighborhoods are important; that residents are the primary source of control; and that informal social controls are emergent. In this paper we propose an alternative: the neighborhoods out of places explanation (NOPE). NOPE starts with property parcels (i.e., proprietary places), rather than neighborhoods. It focuses on the power and legal authority of people and institutions that own property, rather than on residents. It posits that control is intentional and goal driven, rather than emergent. We refer to those who own and control as creators. This small group of elites shape city areas and residents must adapt to the environments that suppress or facilitate crime. We discuss how shifting our focus to creators provides important new implications for theory, research, and policy in criminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the insights of the self-efficacy literature, this study highlights that collective efficacy is a collective perception that comes from a process. This study emphasizes that 1) there is updating, as there are feedback effects from success or failure by the group to the perception of collective efficacy, and 2) this updating raises the importance of accounting for members' degree of uncertainty regarding neighborhood collective efficacy. Using a sample of 113 block groups in three rural North Carolina counties, this study finds evidence of updating as neighborhoods perceiving more crime or disorder reported less collective efficacy at the next time point. Furthermore, collective efficacy was only associated with lower perceived disorder at the next time point when it occurred in highly cohesive neighborhoods. Finally, neighborhoods with more perceived disorder and uncertainty regarding collective efficacy at one time point had lower levels of collective efficacy at the next time point, illustrating the importance of uncertainty along with updating.

In the aftermath of one of the worst recessions in US history, high unemployment has placed millions of Americans in precarious financial positions. More than ever, Americans are opting out of traditional financial services, relying instead on “fringe lenders” such as check cashers, payday lenders, and pawnshops to manage their finances. Given their tremendous growth and the concern that consumers who are least able to pay for high-cost, high-risk financial products are most likely to use them, fringe lenders have been the subject of controversy and the focus of much research. Largely unknown, however, are the effects of fringe lenders on the communities where they are located. Given their spatial concentration in low-income neighborhoods with greater concentrations of racial and ethnic minorities—areas with typically more crime—of concern is whether fringe lenders themselves are criminogenic. We consider this by examining the impact of several types of fringe lenders on neighborhood crime rates in Los Angeles. Our findings reveal that the presence of fringe banks on a block is related to higher crime levels, even after controlling for a range of factors known to be associated with crime rates. The presence of a fringe bank also impacts crime, particularly robbery, on adjacent blocks. Whereas we find that pawnshops have little impact on crime levels, payday lenders and check cashers have a much stronger impact. Finally, we discover there are moderating effects, as the fringe lender–crime relationship is considerably reduced if the lender is located in a higher population density area.

This study examines neighborhood economic improvement, what is occurring in nearby neighborhoods, and the consequences for neighborhood crime rates. Negative binomial regression models are estimated to explain the relationship between the increase in average home values (a component of gentrification) and crime in Los Angeles between 1990 and 2000. We find that the spatial context is important, as gentrifying neighborhoods located on the “frontier” of the gentrification process have significantly more aggravated assaults than gentrifying neighborhoods surrounded by neighborhoods also undergoing improvement. Furthermore, this effect is stronger in neighborhoods that began the decade with the highest average home values. Our findings indicate that the extent to which neighborhoods are more or less embedded in a larger process of economic improvement, and where the neighborhood is at in the economic development process, has differential effects on neighborhood crime.

Social disorganization theory holds that neighborhoods with greater residential stability, higher socioeconomic status, and more ethnic homogeneity experience less disorder because these neighborhoods have higher social cohesion and exercise more social control. Recent extensions of the theory argue that disorder in turn affects these structural characteristics and mechanisms. Using a data set on 74 neighborhoods in the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands spanning 10 years, we tested the extended theory, which to date only a few studies have been able to do because of the unavailability of neighborhood-level longitudinal data. We also improve on previous studies by distinguishing between the potential for social control (feelings of responsibility) and the actual social control behavior. Cross-sectional analyses replicate earlier findings, but the results of longitudinal cross-lagged models suggest that disorder has large consequences for subsequent levels of social control and residential instability, thus leading to more disorder. This is in contrast to most previous studies, which assume disorder to be more a consequence than a cause. This study underlines the importance of longitudinal data, allowing for simultaneously testing the causes and consequences of disorder, as well as the importance of breaking down social control into the two dimensions of the potential for social control and the actual social control behavior. © 2011 American Society of Criminology.

Copyright of Socioloski Pregled is the property of Srpsko Sociolosko Drustvo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The issue of urban safety is a research topic that has attracted the attention of scholars for several years, particularly in relation to the effects of individual and environmental variables that influence the fear of crime. Some recent studies have redefined the study of fear of crime, widening it to a more general dimension represented by the perception of safety. However, no specific tool has been proposed to measure this construct. In this paper, a new assessment scale of the perception of unsafety has been used to examine the impact of individual factors (gender, age, etc.) and ecological factors (ethnic composition of the neighbourhood, residential stability, etc.) on the dimensions of the scale (general sense of unsafety, perception of physical and social disorder, collective efficacy perception and preoccupation with crime). Results showed a strong convergence with the existing evidence with regard to the ambiguous role of some individual variables, such as gender and age, and for the influence of the characteristics of the neighbourhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the theories of social disorganization and routine activities receive considerable support in explaining crime in Western Europe and America, their applicability to other geographical contexts remains largely unexplored. To fill this gap, this paper presents empirical evidence from a Central European post-socialist country, Czechia. Regression analyses at the level of administrative districts are used to identify the key variables affecting property and violent crime during the transformation from socialism to democracy during the 1990s and in the post-transformation period after 2010. Contrary to the Western and some other post-socialist contexts, the theories receive little support in the context of present-day Czechia. Reasons for the limited applicability of the theories to the Czech post-transformation setting are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we untangle the relationships between fear of crime (perceived risk of victimization) and perceptions of, respectively, social support, collective efficacy and perceived disorder. We use a two-wave panel study with 356 respondents. Results show that prior perceptions of disorder have a positive effect on later levels of perceived risk of victimization, lending support to the hypothesis that fear of crime is, in part, determined by perceived disorder. Levels of social support negatively affected later levels of perceived risk of victimization. Neither perceived informal social control nor perceived social trust had any effect on later levels of perceived risk of victimization. Strengths, weaknesses and suggestions for further research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global production of knowledge is grossly skewed to the northern Anglophone world (Hogg et al. in International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 6(1), 1-7, 2017; Connell 2007). It should be no surprise therefore that criminology's origin stories are derivative of northern experiences, yet generalised as universal theories of crime causation. In this article, we argue that the origin stories of criminological theory translated the 'darker', 'hairier' and 'muscular' masculinities of the global south into prototypes of dangerousness. These prototypes were first articulated as scientific claims in the nineteenth century works of Lombroso, but have been refined and embedded in mainstream criminological discourses well into the present, mainly through the quantitative study of social disorganisation, 'race' and racialised masculinities as variables in crime causation. The paper concedes that while deeply troubling expressions of violent masculinity exist now and in the past in the global south, it is mistaken to conceive this violence simply as expressions of atavism or social disorganisation associated with a less civilised world. On the contrary, this paper argues that the violence of colonality itself has had, and continues to have, a criminogenic impact on the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To date, much of what we know about the immigration–crime link is based on the United States setting. Yet, contextual features unique to the United States may produce distinct outcomes for immigration and crime that do not hold elsewhere. This study therefore tests the applicability of ecological frameworks largely derived from the United States experience (such as the immigration revitalization thesis) in a country with a greater mixture of ethnic groups and where immigration policy is focused on recruiting skilled immigrants. Methods: Utilizing an innovative hybrid modeling approach, this article draws on three waves of census data and nine years of official recorded crime incident data to examine the effect of immigration on violent crime across 882 neighborhoods located in two Australian cities. Results: The results offer little evidence that neighborhoods with a greater concentration of immigrants have more crime or that increases in the immigrant population over time are associated with increased violence. Diversity however appears to have a more problematic effect on violent crime in both cities. Conclusions: While these findings are relatively consistent with previous research in the United States, whether this similarity is due to a process of revitalization requires further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extending disorganization and immigrant revitalization perspectives beyond the contexts dominating prior research, this study examines whether and how immigration may be uniquely linked to crime in rural versus urban communities over the 1990–2010 period. Drawing on the Uniform Crime Reports offenses known database and the United States Census, we find that increases in immigration are negatively associated with violence. However, this relationship varies considerably across urban and rural locales. Our analysis reveals that immigration has no effect on crime in the most rural communities, but buffers against it in the most urban ones. Additional regional variation in these urban and rural differences is also revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research suggests that individuals’ interactions with their communities—such as their social integration into the community and perceptions of collective efficacy—impact their perceived risk of victimization, only a handful of studies have examined the influence of these characteristics on crime-specific, emotional fear. Using the Seattle Neighborhoods and Crime Survey, we conduct multilevel models to examine whether social ties and collective efficacy are associated with perceived risk and emotional fear of violence and burglary. The results show that individuals’ social ties to the community are negatively associated with perceived risk, but not emotional fear of violence or burglary, while perceived collective efficacy is negatively related to both cognitive and emotional fear. Moreover, the results suggest that individuals’ social integration into the community functions through perceptions of collective efficacy to predict perceived risk; however, this process does not extend to emotional fear of either violence or burglary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collective efficacy literature provides a framework to understand how neighbourhood structure influences violence. Existing findings have been based largely on American cities where disadvantage and ethnic segregation are more concentrated. Thus, they are not always representative of other Western cities where structural disadvantage has a different history as well as less variation across neighbourhoods. This paper explores the comparative effect of collective efficacy in Seattle, USA, and Brisbane, Australia. Findings show that collective efficacy is a significant predictor of violent victimisation in both cities. However, in Brisbane, traditional measures of structural disorganisation are less of an influence on victimisation than in Seattle, and that collective efficacy as a neighbourhood process can exist and vary across neighbourhoods without extreme disorganisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses issues regarding conducting research on criminology. Topics discussed include researches on criminology, factors leading to commit crimes as described in the book "The Criminology of Place," key theoretical perspectives identified by scholars to understand crime at place. It also discusses key factors explaining crime patterns and the relevance of social disorganization theories in understanding crime in studies of neighborhoods and communities.

Renewed interest in communities as spaces for criminal opportunity has generated numerous studies of neighborhood social dynamics and crime. Most of this research is rooted in social disorganization theory, which examines neighborhood structural characteristics that facilitate effective social control. While many studies tout the benefits of community-based controls, the potential externalities of these efforts remain underexplored. In the modern neoliberal context, where policing strategies stress community involvement and often focus on vaguely-defined problems like 'quality of life' or 'incivilities' and where police have considerable enforcement discretion, the unintended consequences of community-based controls are important to document. I use the ethnographic case study of Gardner Village to explore the potential collateral consequences of one form of collective social control: new parochialism. Applying a critical lens to the social disorganization literature, I argue that when embedded in particular structural contexts, new parochialism contributes to the reproduction of inequality and undermines community-building processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]