The Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Neighborhood Informal Social Control and Crime

Abstract

Social disorganization theory is one of the most widely tested theories in criminology, yet few studies consider the temporal and spatial dynamics of neighborhood composition, neighborhood informal social control and crime. To better understand these relationships, we use census data, police data and three survey waves of data from a unique longitudinal dataset with over 4,000 respondents living across 148 neighborhoods in an Australian city undergoing rapid population growth. We employ cross-lagged reciprocal feedback models to test the central tenets of social disorganization theory and its contemporary advances for three crime types: violent crime, property crime and drug crime. Further, we examine the reciprocal relationship between neighborhood composition, three components of informal social control (neighborhood social ties, expectations for informal social control and the exercise of informal social control) and crime and whether socio-demographic changes in nearby neighborhoods shape these relationships over time. We find that changes in the sociodemographic composition in both focal and nearby areas influence neighborhood informal social control, however, in contrast to cross-sectional studies of social disorganization theory, our results reveal little support that neighborhood informal social control significantly decreases crime over time.

Social Disorganization and Urban Homicide Rates: A Spatial-Temporal Analysis in São Paulo, Brazil 2000 to 2015

“…Spatial panel models further revealed the spatial interaction between social disorganization and homicide trends in São Paulo districts. Overall, our results are in line with a great deal of quantitative and ethnographic research showing that homicide tends to be highly concentrated in communities characterized by high levels of social and economic disadvantage (Pereira et al, 2017;Peres & Nivette, 2017;Sampson et al, 1997;Valasik et al, 2017;Wickes & Hipp, 2018). Specifically, we found evidence of spatial lag, whereby one district's homicide rate depends in part on the level of homicide in neighboring districts.…”

Small Local versus Non-Local: Examining the Relationship between Locally Owned Small Businesses and Spatial Patterns of Crime

“…We acknowledge some limitations to the current study. First, the current study is designed to be cross sectional which raises important theoretical and methodological challenges (Taylor 2015;Wickes and Hipp 2018;Hipp 2010). One theoretical risk of a cross-sectional design is endogeneity.…”

Stepping out of the Shadows: Identity Exposure as a Remedy for Stigma Transfer Concerns in the Medical Marijuana Market

“…Customers engaged in phantom acceptance may be willing to risk stigma transfer if their personal costs of keeping secret a connection to a stigmatized industry outweigh the benefits from hiding. Concealing involvement with a stigmatized industry from family, friends, and colleagues can generate economic costs from spending time and resources to travel to locations remote from places of residence and work (Wolfe and Blithe, 2015), as well as safety-related costs of venturing into dangerous neighborhoods (Wickes and Hipp, 2018) and buying unsafe products online. Other costs of keeping a secret include the psychological burden of heightened distress (Sedlovskaya et al, 2013), self-regulatory depletion (Critcher and Ferguson, 2014), and shame (Tracy and Robins, 2006), as well as social costs of feeling isolation and loneliness (Slepian, Halevy, and Galinsky, 2019).…”