DO NEIGHBORHOODS GENERATE FEAR OF CRIME? AN EMPIRICAL TEST USING THE BRITISH CRIME SURVEY*

For a long time, criminologists have contended that neighborhoods are important determinants of how individuals perceive their risk of criminal victimization. Yet, despite the theoretical importance and policy relevance of these claims, the empirical evidence base is surprisingly thin and inconsistent. Drawing on data from a national probability sample of individuals, linked to independent measures of neighborhood demographic characteristics, visual signs of physical disorder, and reported crime, we test four hypotheses about the mechanisms through which neighborhoods influence fear of crime. Our large sample size, analytical approach, and the independence of our empirical measures enable us to overcome some of the limitations that have hampered much previous research into this question. We find that neighborhood structural characteristics, visual signs of disorder, and recorded crime all have direct and independent effects on individual‐level fear of crime. Additionally, we demonstrate that individual differences in fear of crime are strongly moderated by neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics; between‐group differences in expressed fear of crime are both exacerbated and ameliorated by the characteristics of the areas in which people live.     

TOWARDS AN EXOGENOUS THEORY OF PUBLIC NETWORK PERFORMANCE

This article offers insights into the complexity of assessing the performance of public networks. We have identified three so-called exogenous factors: form of the network, type of inception—whether the network was initially formed as voluntary or mandated—and developmental stage of the network. We argue that where a network stands on each of these factors will determine the appropriateness of specific criteria for assessing the performance of the network.     

A LIFE‐COURSE PERSPECTIVE ON SPIRITUALITY AND DESISTANCE FROM CRIME*

Spirituality is a component of many drug and alcohol treatment strategies, and faith‐based programming is also common within prison settings. Yet research on religiosity—crime linkages has often relied on general youth or adult samples or has included a short time line for gauging positive effects. Life‐course researchers focused on serious delinquents, in turn, have often emphasized other factors associated with long‐term crime patterns, such as marital attachment and job stability, or the criminality of the individual's social ties. This study draws on quantitative and qualitative data derived from a long‐term follow‐up of a sample of serious adolescent male and female offenders to explore the role of spirituality and religious participation as influences on adult patterns of criminal involvement (N= 152). The respondents were first interviewed as adolescents, in 1982, and again as adults in 1995 and 2003. Results of longitudinal analyses that take into account self‐report and incarceration histories at both time periods do not reveal a significant association between these indices of religiosity and the likelihood of evidencing a pattern of sustained desistance. Our analysis of indepth life‐history interviews conducted with most respondents over these two time periods and 41 additional interviews focused specifically on spirituality and religion are used to explore in more detail the promise and challenges associated with relying on religiosity as a catalyst for sustained behavior change.     

Introduction: Understanding Public Policy through Its Instruments—From the Nature of Instruments to the Sociology of Public Policy Instrumentation

Public policy instrumentation and its choice of tools and modes of operation are treated either as a kind of evidence (governing means making regulations, taxing, entering into contracts, communicating, etc.) or as if the questions it raises (the properties of instruments, justifications for choosing them, their applicability, etc.) are part of a rationality of methods without any autonomous meaning. This paper aims to explain the significance of a political sociology approach to public policy instruments in accounting for processes of public policy change: (1) public policy instrumentation is a major issue in public policy, since it reveals a (fairly explicit) theorization of the relationship between the governing and the governed: every instrument constitutes a condensed form of knowledge about social control and ways of exercising it; and (2) instruments at work are not neutral devices: they produce specific effects, independently of the objective pursued (the aims ascribed to them), which structure public policy according to their own logic.