Violence in Urban Neighborhoods: A Longitudinal Study of Collective Efficacy and Violent Crime

Objectives

Cross-sectional studies consistently find that neighborhoods with higher levels of collective efficacy experience fewer social problems. Particularly robust is the relationship between collective efficacy and violent crime, which holds regardless of the socio-structural conditions of neighborhoods. Yet due to the limited availability of neighborhood panel data, the temporal relationship between neighborhood structure, collective efficacy and crime is less well understood.

Methods

In this paper, we provide an empirical test of the collective efficacy-crime association over time by bringing together multiple waves of survey and census data and counts of violent crime incident data collected across 148 neighborhoods in Brisbane, Australia. Utilizing three different longitudinal models that make different assumptions about the temporal nature of these relationships, we examine the reciprocal relationships between neighborhood features and collective efficacy with violent crime. We also consider the spatial embeddedness of these neighborhood characteristics and their association with collective efficacy and the concentration of violence longitudinally.

Results

Notably, our findings reveal no direct relationship between collective efficacy and violent crime over time. However, we find a strong reciprocal relationship between collective efficacy and disadvantage and between disadvantage and violence, indicating an indirect relationship between collective efficacy and violence.

Conclusions

The null direct effects for collective efficacy on crime in a longitudinal design suggest that this relationship may not be as straightforward as presumed in the literature. More longitudinal research is needed to understand the dynamics of disadvantage, collective efficacy, and violence in neighborhoods.

     

The Gains of Greater Granularity: The Presence and Persistence of Problem Properties in Urban Neighborhoods

Objectives

This study applies the growing emphasis on micro-places to the analysis of addresses, assessing the presence and persistence of “problem properties” with elevated levels of crime and disorder. It evaluates what insights this additional detail offers beyond the analysis of neighborhoods and street segments.

Methods

We used over 2,000,000 geocoded emergency and non-emergency requests received by the City of Boston’s 911 and 311 systems from 2011–2013 to calculate six indices of violent crime, physical disorder, and social disorder for all addresses (n = 123,265). We linked addresses to their street segment (n = 13,767) and census tract (n = 178), creating a three-level hierarchy that enabled a series of multilevel Poisson hierarchical models.

Results

Less than 1% of addresses generated 25% of reports of crime and disorder. Across indices, 95–99% of variance was at the address level, though there was significant clustering at the street segment and neighborhood levels. Models with lag predictors found that levels of crime and disorder persisted across years for all outcomes at all three geographic levels, with stronger effects at higher geographic levels. Distinctively, ~15% of addresses generated crime or disorder in one year and not in the other.

Conclusions

The analysis suggests new opportunities for both the criminology of place and the management of public safety in considering addresses in conjunction with higher-order geographies. We explore directions for empirical work including the further experimentation with and evaluation of law enforcement policies targeting problem properties.

     

School Quality, Neighborhoods, and Housing Prices

We study the relationship between school characteristics andhousing prices in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, between1994 and 2001. During this period, the school district was operatingunder a court-imposed desegregation order and drew school boundariesso that students living in the same neighborhoods were oftensent to very different schools in terms of racial mix and averagetest scores of the students. We use differences in housing pricesalong assignment zone boundaries to disentangle the effect ofschools and other neighborhood characteristics. We find systematicdifferences in house prices along school boundaries althoughthe impact of schools is only one-quarter as large as the naivecross-sectional estimates would imply. Part of the impact ofschool assignments is mediated by differences in the characteristicsof the population and the quality of the housing stock thathave arisen on either side of the school assignment boundary.     

Neighborhoods and police: The maintenance of civil athority

This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the third conference of the Society for the Reform of Criminal Law, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia, March 19–23, 1989. The paper was published as G. Kelling &; J. Stewart,Neighborhood and Police: The Maintenance of Civil Authority (National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice-John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Perspectives on Policing Series, No. 10, May 1989).     

骗购经济适用房行为定性分析

对于大量存在的骗购经济适用房的行为,将其入罪的呼声可谓日渐高涨。其实,骗购人骗取的并非财物,也难以确定具体的受骗人、被害人及其财产损失,该行为并不符合诈骗罪的逻辑构造。应通过制度完善避免骗购经济适用房的泛滥,而无需贸然求诸刑罚介入。     

Keeping tabs on the TTAB

TTABlog By John L. Welch Archived back to November 2004, USAhttp://www.thettablog.blogspot.com   John L. Welch, an attorney at Foley Hoag LLP, has an excellentblog focusing on the procedures and decisions of the UnitedStates Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) Trademark Trialand Appeal Board (TTAB, or Board).     

护患纠纷的防范

护患纠纷是医疗纠纷中的一种重要形式 ,在日常医疗活动中常有发生 ,但尚未引起人们足够的重视。相对于一般的医疗纠纷而言 ,护患纠纷有其特殊性 ,认清其本质 ,分析其成因 ,对护患纠纷的防范非常有益。护理人员在工作中应提高工作责任心 ,提高业务技能 ,尽到充分注意和知情告知的义务 ,最大限度地避免护患纠纷的发生。     

护患纠纷的防范

护患纠纷是医疗纠纷中的一种重要形式,在日常医疗活动中常有发生,但尚未引起人们足够的重视.相对于一般的医疗纠纷而言,护患纠纷有其特殊性,认清其本质,分析其成因,对护患纠纷的防范非常有益.护理人员在工作中应提高工作责任心,提高业务技能 ,尽到充分注意和知情告知的义务,最大限度地避免护患纠纷的发生.     

Measuring Disorder: Observer Bias in Systematic Social Observations at Streets and Neighborhoods

Objectives

The present study focuses on Systematic Social Observation (SSO) as a method to investigate physical and social disorder at different units of analysis. The study contributes to the aggregation bias debate and to the ‘social science of ecological assessment’ in two ways: first, by presenting a new model that directly controls for observer bias in ecological constructs and second, by attempting to identify systematic sources of bias in SSO that affect the valid and reliable measurement of physical and social disorder at both street segments and neighborhoods.

Methods

Data on physical disorder (e.g., litter, cigarette butts) and social disorder (e.g., loitering adults) from 1422 street segments in 253 different neighborhoods in a conurbation of the greater The Hague area (the Netherlands) are analyzed using cross-classified multilevel models.

Results

Neighborhood differences in disorder are overestimated when scholars fail to recognize the cross-classified data structure of an SSO study that is due to allocation of street segments to observers and neighborhoods. Not correcting for observer bias and observational conditions underestimates the disorder–crime association at street segment/grid cell level, but overestimates this association at the neighborhood level.

Conclusion

Findings indicate that SSO can be used for measuring disorder at both street segment level and neighborhood level. Future studies should pay attention to observer bias prior to their data collection by selecting a minimum number of observers, offering extensive training, and collecting information on the urban background of the observers.

     

Schools,Neighborhoods, and Adolescent Conflicts: A Situational Examination of Reciprocal Dynamics

Youths' exposure to school violence is ecologically patterned, occurring disproportionately in public schools located in urban disadvantaged communities. We know less, however, about how situational processes and environmental contexts shape school violence. In addition, limited research has examined the reciprocal nature of school and neighborhood conflicts. Here we draw from a qualitative study of violence in the lives of African American youths from a disadvantaged inner‐city community to examine young men's experiences with school‐based violence. Specifically, we investigate two questions: (1) how conflicts are shaped by the school setting, and (2) how and when such conflicts unfold and spill over between neighborhoods and schools. Our findings highlight the importance of examining the situational and ecological contexts of youth violence to further illuminate its causes and consequences.     

The Network of Neighborhoods and Geographic Space: Implications for Joblessness While on Parole

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - Few studies have examined the consequences of neighborhoods for job prospects for people on parole. Specifically, networks between neighborhoods in where...