Whence the Action? the Persistence and Aggravation of Violent Crime at Addresses, Streets, and Neighborhoods

Abstract

Objectives Researchers have long studied the persistence of violence and aggravation from disorder to violence in communities. Recently this work has begun to consider how these phenomena might operate simultaneously at multiple geographic scales. We examine the role of neighborhoods, streets, and addresses in these phenomena, presenting and assessing a five-part typology for cross-scale interactions. Methods We calculated six measures of physical disorder, social disorder, and violent crime from administrative records for all parcels (i.e., addresses) in Boston, MA, for 2011–2016. Multilevel models used these measures to predict public violence and gun-related events in the following year at all three geographical scales and with cross-scale interactions. Results Persistence was common at all scales. Aggravation from disorder to crime was greatest for addresses. Nearly all significant cross-level interactions involved addresses. The most common interactions were reinforced persistence, when persistence of violence at an address was reinforced by violence in the street or neighborhood; and mediated persistence, when persistence at a higher geographic scale operated through addresses with disorder. Conclusions The study suggests that action is greatest at addresses, but streets and neighborhoods offer critical context. It also provides a framework for future work assessing the complementarity of communities and places.

Broken Windows and Community Social Control: Evidence from a Study of Street Segments

“…However, additional analyses revealed that the magnitude of the fear-collective efficacy relationship was greatly diminished when a direct relationship between disorder and collective efficacy was added to the model. 2 Despite explicitly different images and meanings between social disorder (e.g., drug activities, group of kids causing problems) and physical disorder (e.g., buildings with broken windows, litter, graffiti), most studies examining the role of disorder in the mechanisms of the broken windows thesis have used a general disorder measure rather than separated measures of social disorder and physical disorder (for exceptions, see Hinkle 2013Hinkle , 2015O'Brien and Ciomek, 2022;Sampson and Raudenbush 1999;Ward et al 2017). Thus, we know little about how social disorder and physical disorder differentially influence informal social controls in the community, though some studies have identified differential impacts of social disorder and physical disorder on diverse outcomes known to be related to informal social controls in the community, such as physical outdoor activity (Molnar, Gortmaker, Bull, and Buka 2004) and fear of crime (Hinkle 2015;Kuen, Weisburd, White, and Hinkle 2022).…”

“…As a proxy for Wilson and Kelling's (1982) conceptualization of the “informal social control mechanisms” of the community, we employ a measure of collective efficacy developed by Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls (1997). In their effort to better capture the ability of communities to exercise informal social control they defined collective efficacy as the capacity of a neighborhood to realize common values and regulate behavior through cohesive relationships and mutual trust among residents (see also Sampson 2012).…”

“…In contrast, there are now strong evaluation studies showing crime prevention benefits of more focused broken windows policing programs at smaller geographic units often termed crime hot spots (Braga et al 2015; Weisburd and Majmundar 2018). Moreover, a recent study suggests that more “action” in the disorder-crime relationship is at the micro-geographic level (O’Brien and Ciomek 2022), reinforcing the importance of micro-place units in studying the broken windows model.…”

“…In turn, evaluation studies give little attention to the mechanisms behind any crime reductions (Weisburd et al 2015;Weisburd and Majmundar 2018). Importantly as well, studies to date have generally not distinguished between social and physical disorder (for exceptions, see Hinkle 2013;O'Brien and Ciomek 2022;Ward, Link, and Taylor 2017). As such, there remain important gaps in the literature both regarding the mechanism of disorder impacting upon community social control, and in regard to the types of disorder that are most important in producing change in community social control.…”

“…In this paper, we take advantage of a longitudinal data collection effort in Baltimore City, Maryland, that included official information on crime, social surveys, physical observations (PO), and systematic social observations (SSO), to examine the antecedents of community social control at street segments. We measure community social control using a more recent conceptualization developed by Sampson, Raudenbush and Earls (1997) which they termed collective efficacy. We argue below that collective efficacy captures Wilson and Kelling's understanding of the informal social control mechanisms of the community.…”