Social Capital and Homicide

The impact of social capital on crime: Evidence from the Netherlands

“…With the exception of trust all coefficients are significant at the 5 percent level. 19 Our findings are in line with the previous research that reports negative effects for trust, civicness and electoral turnout (e.g., Sampson and Groves, 1989;Rosenfeld, Messner, and Baumer, 2001;Lederman, Loayza, and Menendez, 2002;Messner, Baumer, and Rosenfeld, 2004) and research that finds a positive link between crime and population heterogeneity (e.g., Jobes, 1999) and single parenthood (e.g., Sampson, Morenoff, and Earls, 1999) and crime. Moreover, all three social capital indices have significant negative effects on crime as can be observed from the last three columns in Table 3.…”

“…Voter turnout is hypothesized to capture civic involvement and participation in community decision making. This indicator is also used by Putnam (1993Putnam ( , 1995, Rosenfeld, Messner, and Baumer (2001) and Gatti, Tremblay, and Larocque (2003). Voluntary contributions in money terms are supposed to capture the strength of intermediate social structures such as charities, clubs and churches and could be employed as another indicator that measures the presence of social capital.…”

“…Both sociologists and economists have benefited from the survey-based 'generalized trust' indicator as a proxy to social capital, which measures the degree of opportunistic behaviour and as an alternative indicator to social relations in general (e.g., Putnam, 1995;Knack and Keefer, 1997;Zak and Knack, 2001;Rosenfeld, Messner, and Baumer, 2001;Messner, Baumer, and Rosenfeld, 2004). The trust indicator is found to be highly correlated with other measures of social capital such as memberships to associations, extent of friendship and neighbourhood networks and voting (Putnam, 1995).…”

“…Population heterogeneity is such a factor that may trigger dis-attachment as higher levels of heterogeneity would break closure, reduce acquaintance among residents and may result in lower trust among members of the community (e.g., Rose and Clear, 1998;Rosenfeld, Messner, and Baumer, 2001). The effects of racial and/or ethnic heterogeneity on socio-economic outcomes are well documented in the literature.…”

The Unintended Consequences on Crime of "Pennies from Heaven"

“…Several theories, developed by sociologists and criminologists, hold that social capital has a negative effect on crime. Rosenfeld, Messner, and Baumer (2001) argue that the social disorganization, anomie, and strain theories all predict that civic engagement and social trust (to which they refer as social capital) should reduce crime, because they increase formal and informal social control, strengthen the effectiveness of social norms, and provide resources for individual goal attainment. Indeed, the purpose of many local investment projects presented was to improve local conditions.…”