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.     

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.     

COMPARING DELINQUENCY CAREERS IN COURT RECORDS AND SELF‐REPORTS*

Most knowledge about delinquency careers is derived from official records. The main aim of this paper is to compare conclusions about delinquency careers derived from court referrals with conclusions derived from self‐reports. Data are analyzed from the Seattle Social Development Project, which is a prospective longitudinal survey of 808 youths. Annual court and self‐report data were available from age 11 to age 17 for eight offenses. The prevalence of offending increased with age, in both court referrals and self‐reports. There was a sharp increase in the prevalence of court referrals between ages 12 and 13, probably because of the reluctance of the juvenile justice system to deal with very young offenders. The individual offending frequency increased with age in self‐reports, but it stayed constant in court referrals, probably because of limitations on the annual number of referrals per offender. There was significant continuity in offending in both court referrals and self‐reports, but continuity was greater in court referrals. The concentration of offending (and the importance of chronic offenders) was greater in self‐reports. An early age of onset predicted a large number of offenses in both self‐reports and court referrals. However, an early onset predicted a high rate of offending in court referrals but not in self‐reports, possibly because very young offenders who were referred to court were an extreme group. About 37% of offenders and 3% of offenses led to a court referral. The more frequent offenders were less likely to be referred to court after each offense, but most of them were referred to court sooner or later. There was a sharp increase between ages 12 and 13 in the probability of an offender and an offense leading to a court referral. It is concluded that criminal career research based on self‐reports sometimes yields different conclusions compared with research based on official records.     

A NEW METHOD FOR STUDYING THE EXTENT,STABILITY, AND PREDICTORS OF INDIVIDUAL SPECIALIZATION IN VIOLENCE*

Specialization in violence is an important scientific and policy topic, and over the past several decades, many analysis techniques for studying specialization have emerged. Research in this area continues to be hampered, however, by remaining methodological problems. To overcome these problems, we propose a new method for studying specialization in violence based on an item‐response theory measurement approach that is implemented through a multilevel regression model. Our approach defines specialization as an individual level latent variable, takes into account the inherent confounds between specialization and overall level of offending, and gauges specialization relative to the population base rates of each offense. Our method also enables researchers to 1) estimate the extent and statistical significance of specialization, 2) assess the stability of specialization over time, and 3) relate specialization to explanatory variables. Using data from three studies, we found substantial levels of specialization in violence, considerable stability in specialization over time, and several significant and relatively consistent relationships of specialization to explanatory variables such as gender, parental education, and risk‐seeking.     

UNSTRUCTURED SOCIALIZING,COLLECTIVE EFFICACY,AND VIOLENT BEHAVIOR AMONG URBAN YOUTH*

Relying on extensions of routine activities and social disorganization theories, we examine whether 1) neighborhood social characteristics shape opportunities for the development of unstructured socializing with peers among adolescents, 2) whether unstructured socializing leads to an increase in violent behavior within urban communities, and 3) whether neighborhood collective efficacy modifies the impact of unstructured socializing on violence. The study outlined in this article uses three waves of data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Community Survey and Longitudinal Cohort Study. Results from multilevel linear models suggest that neighborhood collective efficacy supports the development of unstructured socializing with peers. Multilevel Rasch models of violent behavior indicate that, consistent with previous research, unstructured socializing is a powerful predictor of violence. Collective efficacy exerts an independent influence on violent behavior and attenuates the effect of unstructured socializing on this outcome.