ECOLOGICAL NETWORKS AND URBAN CRIME: THE STRUCTURE OF SHARED ROUTINE ACTIVITY LOCATIONS AND NEIGHBORHOOD‐LEVEL INFORMAL CONTROL CAPACITY

By drawing on the work of Jacobs (1961), we hypothesize that public contact among neighborhood residents while engaged in day‐to‐day routines, captured by the aggregate network structure of shared local exposure, is consequential for crime. Neighborhoods in which residents come into contact more extensively in the course of conventional routines will exhibit higher levels of public familiarity, trust, and collective efficacy with implications for the informal social control of crime. We employ the concept of ecological (“eco‐”) networks—networks linking households within neighborhoods through shared activity locations—to formalize the notion of overlapping routines. By using microsimulations of household travel patterns to construct census tract‐level eco‐networks for Columbus, OH, we examine the hypothesis that eco‐network intensity (the probability that households tied through one location in a neighborhood eco‐network will also be tied through another visited location) is negatively associated with tract‐level crime rates (N = 192). Fitted spatial autoregressive models offer evidence that neighborhoods with higher intensity eco‐networks exhibit lower levels of violent and property crime. In contrast, a higher prevalence of nonresident visitors to a given tract is positively associated with property crime. The results of these analyses hold the potential to enrich insight into the ecological processes that shape variation in neighborhood crime.     

Resource Base of Peasants in the Brazilian Amazon: Planning Solutions for Current Problems of Sustainability

Abstract — This is the second paper of a series following a study carried out in the Brazilian Amazon region of peasant livelihoods, their current character and problems of sustainability. It analyses how different people might be affected by environmental degradation in the region by looking at their social and economic activities, the degree of dependency on wild resources, land ownership and the social relations underpinning the structure of the labour force. The study covers three districts within the ecological system of terra firme. Extractivist activities generate income and contribute considerably to food supplies throughout the year. Access to these resources is not generally tied to ownership. Environmental degradation may reduce the future availability of resources or, alternatively, attack health directly. Peasants exposure to these risks is assessed and the long-term sustainability of their livelihoods examined. Possible planning solutions to problems are presented and the more recent debate on the creation of conservation units (SNUC) in Brazil is discussed.     

EXPLAINING RADICAL POLICY CHANGE: THE CASE OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY POLICY UNDER THE BRITISH LABOUR GOVERNMENT 2006–10

An innovative framework combining the ‘multiple streams’ (MS) and ‘punctuated equilibrium’ (PE) models of agenda‐setting is used to explain the transformation of UK climate change and energy policy under the Labour Government between 2006 and 2010. The coupling of the problem, politics and policy streams by policy entrepreneurs (MS), and changes in policy image and institutional venues (PE), were critical in opening a policy window, disrupting the existing policy monopoly and enabling radical policy initiatives. The case study suggests two revisions to the models: (1) policy windows can remain open far longer than either model typically predicts; and (2) party politics, especially where party competition generates a ‘competitive consensus’, can be important for both initiating and prolonging policy change in parliamentary systems. An important factor typically overlooked by both models is the significant policy entrepreneurship role that government ministers can play, particularly when an issue becomes part of their ‘narrative identity’.     

THE HELPING HAND OF THE LAW: POLICE CONTROL OF CITIZENS ON REQUEST*

This study examines how patrol officers respond to citizens' requests that officers control another citizen—by advising or persuading them, warning or threatening them, making them leave someone alone or leave the scene, or arresting them. Data are drawn from field observations conducted in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1996 and St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1997. Officers granted the request for the most restrictive form of control requested by the citizen in 70% of the 396 observed cases. Several factors were modeled to determine their influence on officers' decisions to grant or deny the most restrictive request. These factors include legal considerations, need, factors that attenuate the impact of law or need, the social relationship between the requester and target of control, and personal characteristics of the officer. Multivariate analysis shows that the most influential factors were legal considerations. When citizens requested an arrest, the likelihood that the police would be responsive dropped considerably. However, as the evidence of a legal violation against the targeted citizen increased, so did the odds of an arrest. Officers were less likely to grant the requests of citizens having a close relationship with the person targeted for control, disrespectful of the police, or intoxicated or mentally ill. The race, wealth, and organization affiliation of citizen adversaries had little impact on the police decision. Male officers, officers with fewer years of police experience, and officers with a stronger proclivity to community policing, had significantly greater odds of giving citizens what they requested. The implications of the findings for research and policy are discussed.     

An indirect legitimacy argument for a directly elected European Parliament

Can a directly elected European Parliament help deliver standards by which the European Union can be indirectly legitimated through its component national democracies? This article argues that the Union can be indirectly legitimate where it helps member state democracies meet their own obligations to their own publics. The Union can do just that by managing externalities in ways needed to secure core values of justice, democracy and freedom from arbitrary domination within member states. Yet that poses a predicament: for if any one member state has an interest in imposing negative externalities or in freeriding on positive externalities provided by another, then so may its voters and democratic institutions. The article argues a directly elected European Parliament can help manage that predicament both by identifying externalities and by ensuring their regulation meets standards of public control, political equality and justification owed to individual national democracies.