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.     

How does initial public financing influence private incentives for follow-on investment in early-stage technologies?

One common rationale supporting public financing programs for small firms is that initial public investment creates incentives for follow-on private investment. However, there does not appear to be a unified statement in the literature describing how initial public investment creates incentives for follow-on private investment. Focusing on external private investors, we use a two-stage net present value model to identify four effects from initial public investment on the private decision for follow-on investment. Our empirical analysis uses a sample of non-venture backed firms entering the SBIR program to examine how reduced risk, the number of SBIR awards, and size of initial public investment influence the likelihood of follow-on venture capital investment. We find the probability of follow-on venture capital investment is more likely when firms reach Phase II of the program, is less likely as firms win multiple Phase I and Phase II awards, and is more likely as the size of initial public investment in Phase I increases.

Analytic methods for examining race and ethnic disparity in the juvenile courts

Prior studies of juvenile court decision making and racial disparity are often criticized for their lack of methodological rigor. These studies are criticized for focusing their analyses on separate decision-making stages and not taking into account issues that are related to sample selection. This research attempted to address these issues through an analysis of juvenile court case records from the state of Hawaii. Different limited dependent variable models were used to estimate ethnic disparity in juvenile court outcomes. Comparisons of models according to the Bayesian Information Criteria (BICs) are used to assess the overall fit of these models. The findings indicate few substantive differences across models and a general leniency of the court in favor of White youth. The findings do reveal that there are differences in the accuracy with which these models predicted juvenile court outcomes. The usefulness of this method of model comparison for disparity research is discussed.     

Policing the homeless

Research Summary Police officials across the United States are increasingly relying on place-based approaches for crime prevention. In this article, we examine the Safer Cities Initiative, a widely publicized place-based policing intervention implemented in Los Angeles's “Skid Row” that focused on crime and disorder associated with homeless encampments. Crime reduction was the goal. The police division in which the program was undertaken provides 8 years of time-series data serving as the observations for the treatment condition. Four adjacent police divisions in which the program was not undertaken provide 8 years of time-series data serving as the observations for the comparison condition. The data are analyzed using a generalized additive model. On balance, we find that this place-based intervention is associated with meaningful reductions in violent, property, and nuisance street crimes. There is no evidence of crime displacement. Policy Implications This study provides further evidence that geographically targeted police interventions can lead to significant crime prevention benefits, with no evidence that crime is simply displaced to other areas. Criminologists and the media have given the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) little credit for major reductions in crime that have occurred during the past 5 years following a number of major policy reforms. We suggest that researchers should look more closely at the targeted interventions the LAPD has undertaken for evidence-based examples of effective policing. Importantly, this work suggests that crime associated with homeless encampments can be meaningfully reduced with targeted police actions. However, law enforcement actions do not address the roots of homelessness nor most of its consequences. Getting tough on the homeless should not be confused with policies or programs that respond fundamentally to the social and personal problems that homelessness presents.     

Stages of identity development and problem drinking in college women

Deviation from age-appropriate identity-developmental stage and problem drinking in 75 undergraduate women was investigated. A quantity/frequency scale assessed problem drinking. Two measures of identity, one projective and one observational, were used. May's Deprivation/Enhancement fantasy pattern measure assessed sexual identity. The College Women's Assertion Sample assessed the cognitive-style component of identity. The results supported the hypotheses that younger (freshman/sophomore) women deviating from their age-appropriate identity stage of dedifferentiation, and older (junior/senior) women deviating from their age-appropriate stage of identity integration, were significantly more likely to experience drinking problems than were women who had entered their age-appropriate identity stages. The findings support psychodynamic theories of identity development in late adolescence, and suggest that problem-drinking women in different age/ developmental stages of identity drink for different reasons and should be treated differently.Doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Teaching Associate with the Psychological Services Center there. She has also served on the clinical staff of the Amherst College Counseling Center, the Community Care Mental Health Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, and the Franklin/Hampshire Community Mental Health Center in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her primary interest is in the area of identity development in women.Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Clinical Fellow of the American Psychological Association. She has held faculty appointments at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, the University of Hawaii, the University of Connecticut, and Smith College. Her primary interests are in the areas of statistics and assessment, and clinical gerontology.     

Austerity,rationing and inequity: trends in children’s and young peoples’ services expenditure in England between 2010 and 2015

This article investigates local authority (LA) trends in expenditure on Children’s and Young Peoples’ services in England between 2010 and 2015, a period of government characterised by measures of fiscal austerity. We draw on a rationing framework to contextualise the levels and trends in expenditure under observation. The article analyses trends in various groupings of expenditure, using a latent growth modelling approach to identify significant trajectories in spending across LAs with different deprivation tertile membership. We find that although some kinds of children’s and young peoples’ services expenditure have been largely maintained during this period, preventive family support and early intervention services (such as Sure Start Children’s centres) have seen substantial reductions in expenditure, in contrast to the dominant narrative that children’s services have been protected. LAs in the most deprived tertile have faced the greatest cuts, mirroring other research findings on the distribution of austerity measures.