Neighborhood Effects on Crime and Youth Violence: The Role of Business Improvement Districts in Los Angeles

MacDonald, John M.; Bluthenthal, Ricky N.; Golinelli, Daniela; Kofner, Aaron; Stokes, Robert; Sehgal, Amber; Fain, Terry; Beletsky, Leo

doi:10.7249/tr622

Cited by 25 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…BID crime prevention activities may also garner additional resources from the police, as the police now have an active ‘partner’ in a community. Other established Los Angeles BID have relatively small budgets and focus their efforts primarily on place promotion in an effort to foster improved commercial activity for their constituent businesses 12. While the protocol for establishing a BID in Los Angeles is uniform and codified into law,12 the dosage of tactics to improve neighbourhood environments varies between BID areas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The formulation of BID in Los Angeles requires a formalised and uniform planning and adoption stage that is structured by law. Details are provided elsewhere 12. For all the areas that eventually adopted a BID in Los Angeles, there are at least 2 years' worth of data during which no BID (pre) was operational and, similarly, at least 2 years of data during which all the BID were fully operational (post).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even after taking into account time stable area differences in the average volume of crime, poverty rates and other neighbourhood features, it is difficult to reconcile whether establishing a BID is independent from other facets of community change that may presage drops in crime. A detailed analysis of budget data and observations of neighbourhoods in Los Angeles where BID are situated, for example, showed that their priorities of spending were correlated with observable indicators of neighbourhood physical decay and surrounding economic conditions 12. Therefore, using the BID area before BID implementation may be a more appropriate comparison group.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The effect of business improvement districts on the incidence of violent crimes

et al. 2010

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ObjectiveTo examine whether business improvement districts (BID) contributed to greater than expected declines in the incidence of violent crimes in affected neighbourhoods.MethodA Bayesian hierarchical model was used to assess the changes in the incidence of violent crimes between 1994 and 2005 and the implementation of 30 BID in Los Angeles neighbourhoods.ResultsThe implementation of BID was associated with a 12% reduction in the incidence of robbery (95% posterior probability interval −2 to 24) and an 8% reduction in the total incidence of violent crimes (95% posterior probability interval −5 to 21). The strength of the effect of BID on robbery crimes varied by location.ConclusionThese findings indicate that the implementation of BID can reduce the incidence of violent crimes likely to result in injury to individuals. The findings also indicate that the establishment of a BID by itself is not a panacea, and highlight the importance of targeting BID efforts to crime prevention interventions that reduce violence exposure associated with criminal behaviours.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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The effect of business improvement districts on the incidence of violent crimes

et al. 2010

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“…An assessment on the BID's behalf is levied by the city through property or business tax collection within a designated geographic boundary and the city then transfers the funds to the nonprofit organization managing the daily operations of each BID (MacDonald et al. ).…”

Section: Study Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Privatization of Public Safety in Urban Neighborhoods: Do Business Improvement Districts Reduce Violent Crime Among Adolescents?

MacDonald¹,

Stokes²,

Grunwald³

et al. 2013

Law Soc Rev

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The business improvement district (BID) is a popular economic development and urban revitalization model in which local property and business owners must pay an assessment tax that funds supplementary services, including private security. BIDs constitute a controversial form of urban revitalization to some because they privatize economic development and public safety efforts in public space. This study examines whether BIDs provide tangible benefits beyond their immediate boundaries to local residents in the form of reduced violence among adolescents. The empirical analysis advances an existing literature dominated by evaluation studies by introducing a theoretically driven dataset with rich information on individual and neighborhood level variables. The analysis compares violent victimization among youths living in BID neighborhoods with those in similarly situated non‐BID neighborhoods. We find no effect of BIDs on violence. However, we do find that youth violence is strongly correlated with neighborhood collective efficacy and family‐related attributes of social control. In conclusion, we argue that BIDs may be an agent of crime reduction, but this benefit is likely concentrated only in their immediate boundaries and does not extend to youths living in surrounding neighborhoods.

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“…BIDs are popular internationally, but their role in reducing crime has received scant research. One such research project, carried out in Los Angeles, did not find support for a positive effect of BIDs on reducing violent youth crime, though burglary went down significantly in BID areas (McDonald et al, 2009). However, the role of security was never incorporated in a systematic way into the BIDs for the purpose of reducing crime in those areas, which is central to our model.…”

Section: Loo_4 Security For Economic Developmentmentioning

confidence: 96%