NEIGHBORHOOD SOCIAL CONTROL AND PERCEPTIONS OF CRIME AND DISORDER IN CONTEMPORARY URBAN CHINA*

By drawing on the two streams of Western literature on “neighborhood effects” and perceptions of neighborhood disorder adapted to the distinctive organizational infrastructure of neighborhoods in contemporary urban China, we examine the contextual effects of different forms of neighborhood social control (i.e., collective efficacy, semipublic control, public control, and market‐based control) on different types of perceived disorder (i.e., criminal activity, social disorder, physical disorder, and total disorder) across neighborhoods. The analyses are based on data collected in the year 2013 from a survey of approximately 2,500 households in 50 neighborhoods across the city of Tianjin. Collective efficacy as a form of informal control has a significant effect only for perceived social disorder. Public control as measured by the activities of neighborhood police stations has a significant contextual effect on all forms of perceived disorder, whereas the role of market‐based control as represented by contracted community services is limited to perceived physical disorder. Finally, semipublic control as measured by the activities of neighborhood committees significantly affects all forms of perceived disorder, but the direction of the effect is positive. We interpret this positive effect with reference to the complex processes surrounding the “translation” of neighborhood disorderly conditions into perceptions of disorder.     

RESIDENT PERCEPTIONS OF CRIME AND DISORDER: HOW MUCH IS “BIAS”, AND HOW MUCH IS SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT DIFFERENCES?*

This study attempted to disentangle the extent to which residents are systematically biased when reporting on the level of crime or disorder in their neighborhood. By using a unique sample of households nested in household clusters, this study teased out the degree of systematic bias on the part of respondents when perceiving crime and disorder. The findings are generally consistent with theoretical expectations of which types of residents will perceive more crime or disorder and contrast with the generally mixed results of prior studies that used an inappropriate aggregate unit when assuming that residents live in the same social context of crime or disorder. Estimating ancillary models on a sample of respondents nested in tracts produced mixed results that mirror the existing literature. This article shows that Whites consistently perceive more crime or disorder than their neighbors. It also shows that females, those with children, and those with longer residence in the neighborhood perceive more crime or disorder than their neighbors.     

SOCIAL CONCERN AND CRIME: MOVING BEYOND THE ASSUMPTION OF SIMPLE SELF‐INTEREST

Most leading crime theories and crime‐control policies are based on the assumption that people are self‐interested. But recent work in a variety of fields has challenged this assumption, suggesting that people are both self‐interested and socially concerned. Social concern involves biologically based inclinations that sometimes lead people to give more consideration to others than to their own interests. These inclinations include caring about others, forming close ties to and cooperating with others, following certain moral intuitions, and conforming. This article describes the nature of and evidence for social concern, as well as the ways in which social factors shape social concern. The article then presents a theory of social concern and crime. Social concern has direct, indirect, mediating, and conditioning effects on crime. Although social concern generally reduces the likelihood of crime, it has little effect on or increases crime under certain conditions.     

ASSESSING THE EXTENT OF CRIME DISPLACEMENT AND DIFFUSION OF BENEFITS: A REVIEW OF SITUATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION EVALUATIONS*

Few criticisms of situational crime‐prevention (SCP) efforts are as frequent or prevalent as claims of displacement. Despite emerging evidence to the contrary, the prevailing sentiment seems to be that crime displacement is inevitable. This study examined 102 evaluations of situationally focused crime‐prevention projects in an effort to determine the extent to which crime displacement was observed. The results indicate that of the 102 studies that examined (or allowed for examination of) displacement and diffusion effects, there were 574 observations. Displacement was observed in 26 percent of those observations. The opposite of displacement, diffusion of benefit, was observed in 27 percent of the observations. Moreover, the analysis of 13 studies, which allowed for assessment of overall outcomes of the prevention project while taking into account spatial displacement and diffusion effects, revealed that when spatial displacement did occur, it tended to be less than the treatment effect, suggesting that the intervention was still beneficial. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.     

EXAMINING THE (IR)RELEVANCE OF AGGREGATION BIAS FOR MULTILEVEL STUDIES OF NEIGHBORHOODS AND CRIME WITH AN EXAMPLE COMPARING CENSUS TRACTS TO OFFICIAL NEIGHBORHOODS IN CINCINNATI*

Different operational definitions of neighborhood boundaries could generate differences in empirical relationships between ecological dynamics and crime. As a call for research on whether aggregation bias is an issue for related studies, this note compares bi‐level models predicting re‐arrest for domestic violence with census tracts versus officially defined city neighborhoods as macro units. Results indicate that both types of units generate the same substantive findings at the aggregate and individual levels of analysis. Similarities also exist between these results and those from previous multilevel studies of crime and victimization despite differences in the aggregate units across studies (including block groups).     

CIVIC COMMUNITY IN THE HINTERLAND: TOWARD A THEORY OF RURAL SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND VIOLENCE*

Drawing on the civic community literature, this article explicates a theoretical model to explain variation in rates of violence across rural communities. It is hypothesized that rural communities with a stable population base that is locally invested, a vibrant participatory civic culture with a well‐developed noneconomic institutional base, and a robust economically independent middle class will have lower rates of violent crime. Results from the analysis of data for more than 1,000 rural counties reveal that the 11 variables used to operationalize the theory are empirically distinguishable from indicators of resource disadvantage and form three well‐defined indices: a residential stability/local investment factor, a local capitalism/independent middle class factor, and a civic engagement factor. Negative binomial regression models confirm that violent crime rates are generally much lower in communities that score high on these dimensions. Implications of these findings for future macrolevel criminological research are discussed.