The Juvenile Violent Crime Drop: Exploring the Influence of Community Changes.

This paper explores the contribution of community factors to the juvenile violent crime drop that began in 1993. Using a sample of 134 counties, we employ change-score analysis to test the relationships between changes in four categories of community influences and juvenile violent crime trends during the 1990's. The categories include demography, poverty and poor families, community capacity, and illegitimate economic opportunities. We found that community capacity changes were the most strongly related to juvenile violence trends, although different aspects of community capacity were influential during the early and late years of the drop. Poverty concentration appears to have played a role during the latter years. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]