THE SOCIAL EMBEDDEDNESS OF CRIME AND UNEMPLOYMENT*

A missing piece in the literature that links crime and unemployment is an understanding of the proximate causes of joblessness in the lives of individuals. Granovetter has demonstrated with his concept of social embeddedness that early employment contacts can enhance the prospects of getting a job and subsequent occupational mobility. The alternative implication is that youths who are embedded in criminal contexts can become isolated from the likelihood of legitimate adult employment. This has important implications for an understanding of crime and unemployment, for while much of past macro-level research confirms that unemployment leads to crime in the aggregate, the reverse is likely true at the individual level among adolescents and young adults, especially in community settings with serious crime and unemployment problems. The implications of criminal embeddedness are explored in a well-known set of London panel data. Understanding the process of embeddedness is important because it helps to identify points of intervention, such as peer and justice system contacts.     

EXAMINING THE GENERALITY OF THE UNEMPLOYMENT–CRIME ASSOCIATION

This article examines whether the relationship between unemployment and criminal offending depends on the type of crime analyzed. We rely on fixed‐effects regression models to assess the association between changes in unemployment status and changes in violent crime, property crime, and driving under the influence (DUI) over a 6‐year period. We also examine whether the type of unemployment benefit received moderates the link to criminal behavior. We find significantly positive effects of unemployment on property crime but not on other types of crime. Our estimates also suggest that unemployed young males commit less crime while participating in active labor market programs when compared with periods during which they receive standard unemployment benefits.     

THE MYTH OF SOCIAL CLASS AND CRIME REVISITED: AN EXAMINATION OF CLASS AND ADULT CRIMINALITY*

Although recent empirical research questions the conclusion that crime is highest in the lower class, this empirical literature is plagued by limited measures of social class or of crime and by a failure to study systematically the effect of social class on crime in the adult general population. The present work was undertaken in an attempt to rectify many of the inadequacies of the class‐crime research. Self‐report data were collected from a general population of adult residents in a large, midwestern city and were analyzed to assess the effects of a wide range of class measures on crime measures. The overall results produced from a sample of 555 adults demonstrated that regardless of how class or crime were measured, social class exerted little direct influence on adult criminality in the general population. Consistent with research findings from nonself‐report studies, social class was related to criminal involvement for nonwhites.     

CLOSE‐UPS AND THE SCALE OF ECOLOGY: LAND USES AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF SOCIAL CONTEXT AND CRIME

Whereas one line of recent neighborhood research has placed an emphasis on zooming into smaller units of analysis such as street blocks, another line of research has suggested that even the meso‐area of neighborhoods is too narrow and that the area surrounding the neighborhood is also important. Thus, there is a need to examine the scale at which the social ecology impacts crime. We use data from seven cities from around the year 2000 to test our research questions using multilevel negative binomial regression models (N = 73,010 blocks and 8,231 block groups). Our results suggest that although many neighborhood factors seem to operate on the microscale of blocks, others seem to have a much broader impact. In addition, we find that racially and ethnically homogenous blocks within heterogeneous block groups have the most crime. Our findings also show the strongest results for a multitude of land‐use measures and that these measures sharpen some of the associations from social characteristics. Thus, we find that accounting for multiple scales simultaneously is important in ecological studies of crime.     

SOCIAL ALTRUISM AND CRIME*

Drawing on the theoretical statements of Braithwaite (1989), Cullen (1994), Messner and Rosenfeld (1994), this research examines the influence of social altruism on the level of crime for a sample of U.S. cities. The multivariate analyses clearly indicate that the ratio of contributions to the United Way to aggregate city income, a behavioral approximation of the cultural value of altruism, is inversely related to property and violent crime rates. The implications of these findings for the reduction of crime are discussed.     

THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF SELF-CONTROL: TESTING THE GENERAL THEORY OF CRIME*

Gottfredson and Hirschi's recently introduced general theory of crime has received considerable empirical support. Researchers have found that low self-control, the general theory's core concept, is related to lawbreaking and to deviant behaviors considered by Gottfredson and Hirschi to be “analogous” to crime. In this article, we extend this research by assessing the effects of low self-control on crime and analogous behaviors and by using two distinct measures of self-control, an attitudinal measure and the analogous/behavior scale. Thus, following Gottfredson and Hirschi, we use analogous imprudent behaviors as outcomes of low self-control and as indicators of low self-control's effects on crime. We also examine an important but thus far neglected part of the theory: the claim that low self-control has effects not only on crime but also on life chances, life quality, and other social consequences. Consistent with the general theory, we found that both measures of self-control, attitudinal and behavioral, have effects on crime, even when controlling for a range of social factors. Further, the analysis revealed general support for the theory's prediction of negative relationships between low self-control and social consequences other than crime—life outcomes and quality of life.     

SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION AND THEORIES OF CRIME AND DELINQUENCY: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS*

After a period of decline in the discipline, the social disorganization model of Shaw and McKay is again beginning to appear in the literature. This paper examines five criticisms of the perspective and discusses recent attempts to address those issues and problems that are still in need of resolution.     

THE SOCIAL ECOLOGY OF PUBLIC SPACE: ACTIVE STREETS AND VIOLENT CRIME IN URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS

Drawing on one element of the discussion by Jacobs ( 1961 ) of the social control benefits of “eyes on the street,” this article explores the link between the prevalence of active streets and violence in urban neighborhoods. Three distinct data sources from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods are merged to explore the functional form and potential contingency of the active streets–violence relationship: 1) video data capturing the presence of people on neighborhood streets; 2) longitudinal data on adolescents (11 to 16 years of age) and their self‐reports of witnessing severe violence; and (3) community survey data on neighborhood social organizational characteristics. The results from multilevel models indicate that the proportion of neighborhood streets with adults present exhibits a nonlinear association with exposure to severe violence. At low prevalence, the increasing prevalence of active streets is positively associated with violence exposure. Beyond a threshold, however, increases in the prevalence of active streets serve to reduce the likelihood of violence exposure. The analyses offer no evidence that the curvilinear association between active streets and violence varies by levels of collective efficacy, and only limited evidence that it varies by anonymity. Analyses of data on homicide and violent victimization corroborate these findings.     

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.     

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND INSTRUMENTAL CRIME: ASSESSING THE EMPIRICAL VALIDITY OF CLASSIC AND CONTEMPORARY ANOMIE THEORIES*

This research assesses the empirical validity of the classic anomie theory articulated by Robert Merton and the important contemporary extension of his work encompassed in Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional anomie theory. Using a unique aggregate‐level data set, our empirical investigation reveals that, consistent with theoretical expectations, instrumental crime rates are significantly higher in areas where both a strong commitment to monetary success goals and a weak commitment to legitimate means exist. The tendency for this “goals/means” value complex to translate into higher rates of instrumental crime is reduced in the context of higher levels of welfare assistance and more frequent socializing among families. We also find that low levels of educational and economic attainment and high levels of inequality enhance the degree to which commitment to monetary success translates into instrumental crime. Overall, the findings are supportive of some claims by classic and contemporary anomie theories, but also they point to the need for further refinement of these perspectives and additional assessments of their empirical validity.     

THE ELUSIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS AND CRIME: AN ASSESSMENT ACROSS DISADVANTAGED AREAS OF THE SOUTH BRONX

Several theoretical perspectives posit a negative association between the extent of a neighborhood's organizational infrastructure and crime; yet, empirical support for this proposition has been limited in that researchers generally examine only a few types of organizations or combine them into one aggregate measure. Studies with few measures may omit organizations that are effective at reducing crime, whereas those using aggregate measures obscure differences across organizations in their ability to control crime. Using data from 74 block groups in the South Bronx, NY, this research seeks to specify more clearly the relationship between organizations and crime in a disadvantaged urban environment. We examine the relationship among nine different types of organizations and violent and property crime controlling for prior crime, land use, and area sociodemographic characteristics. Consistent with theories that highlight the importance of organizations for establishing ties outside the neighborhood, we find that block groups with more organizations that bridge to the larger community experience a decrease in crime. Property crime also is reduced in block groups with more organizations that promote the well‐being of families and children. We find that schools are associated with an increase in property crime, whereas the effects of other organizations are context specific and vary based on neighborhood racial composition, commercial land use, and disadvantage.     

COMPETITION BETWEEN CABLE TELEVISION AND DIRECT BROADCAST SATELLITE: THE IMPORTANCE OF SWITCHING COSTS AND REGIONAL SPORTS NETWORKS

We use aggregate firm-level price data and other related demographicvariables to examine the cost of switching between cable televisionand direct broadcast satellite (DBS). We find that switchingcosts appear to affect consumers' desire to switch from oneservice to another. We then use observation-specific dummy variablesthat stratify cable price to examine whether consumer behaviorvaries depending on the size of price change. We find that,when quality-adjusted prices for basic cable services increasesubstantially, subscribers will switch from cable to DBS, presumablyat the point at which the price change is larger than the costof switching. However, we find some evidence that DBS penetrationis suppressed in areas where cable operators offer regionalsports channels.     

COMMUNITY, ENVIRONMENT, AND VIOLENT CRIME

Using regression analysis of community areas of Chicago, patterns of homicide, robbery, and aggravated assault are analyzed for the mid-1970s. It is found that neighborhoods in which very poor and middle-class people live in close proximity are those in which rates of all three types of criminal violence are highest. Of all demographic and crime variables analyzed, proximity was by far the most strongly related to crime rates. This relationship was taken to be another indicator of the extreme burden placed on blacks in heavily segregated cities of the urban North.     

MASS COMPLIANCE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION

When government policy decisions affect the general public, people may or may not comply. How and why compliance occurs is not well understood. Current research on compliance has several weaknesses: (1) it tends to focus on the behavior of public officials rather than on the general public; (2) it relies on static rather than dynamic models; and (3) it underestimates the impact of social groups on individual choices. The present analysis treats compliance as a dynamic process incorporating both social influence and individual calculation. We assume that primary groups (family, peers), social status, and a society's culture all play important roles in changing compliance over time.