The Privatization of Public Safety in Urban Neighborhoods: Do Business Improvement Districts Reduce Violent Crime Among Adolescents?

The business improvement district (BID) is a popular economic development and urban revitalization model in which local property and business owners must pay an assessment tax that funds supplementary services, including private security. BIDs constitute a controversial form of urban revitalization to some because they privatize economic development and public safety efforts in public space. This study examines whether BIDs provide tangible benefits beyond their immediate boundaries to local residents in the form of reduced violence among adolescents. The empirical analysis advances an existing literature dominated by evaluation studies by introducing a theoretically driven dataset with rich information on individual and neighborhood level variables. The analysis compares violent victimization among youths living in BID neighborhoods with those in similarly situated non‐BID neighborhoods. We find no effect of BIDs on violence. However, we do find that youth violence is strongly correlated with neighborhood collective efficacy and family‐related attributes of social control. In conclusion, we argue that BIDs may be an agent of crime reduction, but this benefit is likely concentrated only in their immediate boundaries and does not extend to youths living in surrounding neighborhoods.     

Andrea Cox: Trapped in a Vice: The Consequences of Confinement for Young People New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2017, 4181 pp,Series: Critical issues in crime and society,LCCN: 2017007405

Journal of Youth and Adolescence -     

The military as a resource for peace-building: time for reconsideration?

The use of the military for development purposes in the 1960s fell out of fashion following its involvement in human rights abuses in many countries. This article examines whether it is now appropriate to welcome back the military as an agent of peacebuilding. Two arguments in favour—the economic and the Gandhian—are considered and then compared with some arguments against. While there is an obvious role for the military in peacekeeping, the article concludes that the military's emphasis on the use of force renders it unsuitable, by comparison with civilian bodies, for the tasks of peacebuilding.     

Semantic and Episodic Autobiographical Memory Recall for Memories Not Directly Associated with Childhood Sexual Abuse

A pattern of overgeneral autobiographical memory recall for memories not directly associated with the abuse has been found in previous research. However, studies with a non psychiatric population are limited. In a non psychiatric student population sample, this study will use two methods of accessing autobiographical memory, The Children's Autobiographical Memory Inventory (CAMI) and the Autobiographical Memory Task (AMT). Contrary to the predictions, this study did not find that episodic recall to the AMT was less specific and episodic recall to the CAMI contained greater detail for both the abuse group and the trauma control group compared to a no trauma control group. Significant differences were found between groups on personal semantic recall with the CSA group reporting significantly lower semantic recall than the two control groups. These findings are relevant to therapeutic interventions as well as having potential implications for interviewing and obtaining statements to be used as evidence.