An Examination of the Assumption that Adult Businesses Are Associated with Crime in Surrounding Areas: A Secondary Effects Study in Charlotte, North Carolina

Abstract

Recent Supreme Court decisions have signaled the need for sound empirical studies of the secondary effects of adult businesses on the surrounding areas for use in conjunction with local zoning restrictions. This study seeks to determine whether a relationship exists between adult erotic dance clubs and negative secondary effects in the form of increased numbers of crimes reported in the areas surrounding the adult businesses, in Charlotte, North Carolina. For each of 20 businesses, a control site (matched on the basis of demographic characteristics related to crime risk) is compared for crime events over the period of three years (1998–2000) using data on crime incidents reported to the police. We find that the presence of an adult nightclub does not increase the number of crime incidents reported in localized areas surrounding the club (defined by circular areas of 500‐ and 1,000‐foot radii) as compared to the number of crime incidents reported in comparable localized areas that do not contain such an adult business. Indeed, the analyses imply the opposite, namely, that the nearby areas surrounding the adult business sites have smaller numbers of reported crime incidents than do corresponding areas surrounding the three control sites studied. These findings are interpreted in terms of the business mandates of profitability and continuity of existence of the businesses.

New directions in research on prostitution

“…There has been some community mobilization against massage parlors, strip clubs, and adult video stores -either because of what they symbolize (immorality, degradation of women) or because of some alleged negative effects on the surrounding area. A sophisticated study by Linz (2004) found that crime was much more prevalent in the immediate vicinity of bars and gas stations than in the area surrounding strip clubs, partly because of the security measures taken by strip clubs.…”

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-sexual: Commercial Sex

“…The extent to which commercial sex should be treated as potentially 'harmful' is hindered by the paucity of evidence about the nature and extent of its impacts. For example, currently, there is a reliance on a small number of US studies on 'secondary effects' that draw markedly different conclusions about the impacts of sex businesses in different cities (e.g., Linz et al, 2004). Regardless of whether decisions regarding harm are based on evidence or perception, the idea that LGBTI sexual commerce is more deviant than heterosexual sexual commerce has meant that LGBTI sex commerce has traditionally been subject to moral campaigns of prohibition, or subject to being socially and spatially marginalized.…”

Demography, foreclosure, and crime:

“…Recent scholarship has explored neighborhood spatial variation in crime across several U.S. cities (e.g., Austin, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, New York City, St. Louis, San Diego, and Seattle) and has considered a wide variety of attributes. Among the factors considered in recent work are the prevalence of adult "business establishments" (Linz et al 2004), the presence of illicit drug markets (Martinez, Rosenfeld, and Mares 2008) and licensed alcohol outlets (Roncek 1981;Peterson, Krivo, and Harris 2000;Pridemore and Grubesic 2011), legal cynicism (Kirk and Papachristos 2011), physical and social disorder (Sampson and Raudenbush 1999;Taylor 2001), order maintenance policing (Rosenfeld, Fornango, and Rengifo 2007), social ties, collective efficacy, and institutional strength (Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls 1997;Bellair 2000;Triplett, Gainey, and Sun 2003), gentrification , the density of commerce (Browning et al 2010), and the implication of the "built environment" more generally (Matthews, et al 2010). The diversity of concentration in recent neighborhood crime research has been balanced, however, by steady attention to a common set of demographic predictors of the spatial distribution of crime.…”