LEGAL CYNICISM,COLLECTIVE EFFICACY,AND THE ECOLOGY OF ARREST*

Ethnographic evidence reveals that many crimes in poor minority neighborhoods evade criminal justice sanctioning, thus leading to a negative association between the proportion of minority residents in a neighborhood and the arrest rate. To explain this finding, we extend recent theoretical explications of the concept of legal cynicism. Legal cynicism refers to a cultural orientation in which the law and the agents of its enforcement are viewed as illegitimate, unresponsive, and ill equipped to ensure public safety. Crime might flourish in neighborhoods characterized by legal cynicism because individuals who view the law as illegitimate are less likely to comply with it; yet because of legal cynicism, these crimes might go unreported and therefore unsanctioned. This study draws on data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods to test the importance of legal cynicism for understanding geographic variation in the probability of arrest. We find that, in neighborhoods characterized by high levels of legal cynicism, crimes are much less likely to lead to an arrest than in neighborhoods where citizens view the police more favorably. Findings also reveal that residents of highly cynical neighborhoods are less likely to engage in collective efficacy and that collective efficacy mediates the association between legal cynicism and the probability of arrest.     

HOW COLLECTIVE IS COLLECTIVE EFFICACY? THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSENSUS IN JUDGMENTS ABOUT COMMUNITY COHESION AND WILLINGNESS TO INTERVENE

Existing studies have generally measured collective efficacy by combining survey respondents’ ratings of their local area into an overall summary for each neighborhood. Naturally, this approach results in a substantive focus on the variation in average levels of collective efficacy between neighborhoods. In this article, we focus on the variation in consensus of collective efficacy judgments. To account for differential consensus among neighborhoods, we use a mixed‐effects location‐scale model, with variability in the consensus of judgments treated as an additional neighborhood‐level random effect. Our results show that neighborhoods in London differ, not just in their average levels of collective efficacy but also in the extent to which residents agree with one another in their assessments. In accord with findings for U.S. cities, our results show that consensus in collective efficacy assessments is affected by the ethnic composition of neighborhoods. Additionally, we show that heterogeneity in collective efficacy assessments is consequential, with higher levels of criminal victimization, worry about crime, and risk avoidance behavior in areas where collective efficacy consensus is low.     

Optimal Targeting of Incivility-Reduction Strategies

Neighborhood incivilities—minor breaches of order such as vandalism, vacant houses, and trash on the streets—are, as a group, important causes of fear of crime and neighborhood dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, it is uncertain how much individual incivilities differ in importance, and which incivilities are most important. A survey of residents of 30 Baltimore neighborhoods suggests that different incivilities influence perceptions of the amount of crime, fear of crime, and neighborhood satisfaction, and that the patterns of influence differ among neighborhoods. As a result, top-down and city-wide responses to crime, fear, and neighborhood satisfaction problems may be less effective than responses tailored to individual neighborhood conditions.     

VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS AND NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME: A DYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE*

Although numerous theories suggest that voluntary organizations contribute to lower crime rates in neighborhoods, the evidence for this proposition is weak. Consequently, we propose a dynamic perspective for understanding the relationship between voluntary organizations and neighborhood crime that involves longitudinal analyses and the measurement of the age of organizations. By using longitudinal data on a sample of census blocks (N = 87,641) located across 10 cities, we test the relationship between age‐graded measures of different types of voluntary organizations and neighborhood crime rates. We use fixed‐effects negative binomial regression models that focus on change within neighborhoods of the relationship between voluntary organizations and neighborhood crime. Our results show that although each type of voluntary organization is found to exhibit crime‐reducing behavior in neighborhoods, we find that many of them are consistent with what we refer to as the “delayed impact scenario”—there is a pronounced delay between the placement of a voluntary organization and a neighborhood subsequently experiencing a reduction in crime. With protective effects of organizations typically not demonstrated until several years after being in the neighborhood, these patterns suggest a need for long‐term investment strategies when examining organizations.     

Social-Demographic,School, Neighborhood,and Parenting Influences on the Academic Achievement of Latino Young Adolescents

Using data from a national sample of 388 Latino young adolescents, this study identified the social-demographic characteristics, influences in the broader social environment, and parenting practices that predict youth academic achievement. Youths who were Mexican American, older, and had an English language problem had lower levels of reading and mathematics achievement. Youths of mothers who began childbearing at older ages, had higher levels of intellectual abilities, and reported no English language problem scored better on both types of achievement tests, but poverty was related only to reading achievement. Attendance in higher-rated schools was associated with higher reading and mathematics scores, but residence in better quality neighborhoods was related only to reading achievement. Three parenting practices—providing cognitive stimulation, parent–youth conflict, and academic involvement—predicted both types of achievement. The effect of poverty on reading achievement was explained by residence in lower quality neighborhoods, lower levels of cognitive stimulation, and parent–youth conflict.Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Received PhD in Social Welfare from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Research interests include examining the effects of poverty and other risk factors on the well-being of children, adolescents, and families.     

Fiscal Crisis and Community Development: The Great Recession,Support Networks,and Community Development Corporation Capacity

Community development corporations (CDC) are a cornerstone of neighborhood improvement in legacy cities. Yet they face challenges that threaten their financial sustainability, challenges that grew exponentially with the Great Recession. This article examines the impact of the Great Recession on the revenue and survival of CDC in Baltimore, Maryland; Cleveland, Ohio; and Detroit, Michigan. An analysis of financial data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics from 2004 to 2011 highlights issues of industry contraction, revenue concentration and loss, and CDC survival. Interviews and examination of multiple secondary sources of information on CDC activity and support networks in each city further our understanding of the financial results. We find that the CDC industry in all three cities was severely impacted by the Great Recession and that the CDC support networks in each city had a significant intervening effect on the ability of CDC to adapt to the fiscal and service pressures created by the recession. We discuss the implications of the shared trends and the city-specific dynamics for the role of CDC in neighborhood improvement in legacy cities.     

The European Union and Upheavals in its Neighborhood: A Force for Stability?

This article explores the EU’s action in the context of revolutionary upheavals in its neighborhood, focusing on two cases where the EU’s overall influence is relatively strong: Moldova in 2009 and Tunisia in 2010–2011. It analyzes the intertwining of the normative and strategic agendas by examining the goals, instruments and impact of EU action in each case. The findings highlight a limited and reactive role of the EU, a strong emphasis on stability and a shift towards a more normative engagement in response to external changes that made it easier to merge security- and value-oriented goals.     

总体国家安全观视野下的中国周边安全合作

中国总体国家安全的实现,不仅需要加强国内安全治理,也需要重视国际安全合作。周边地区对于中国国家安全至关重要,也是总体国家安全观践行的首要外部区域。十年来,中国积极践行总体国家安全观,在政治安全、国土安全、军事安全、经济安全等多领域与周边国家加强合作,谋求以新安全格局保障新发展格局。纵观中国与周边国家安全合作的历程,呈现出以下特点：统筹安全与发展、协调推进各领域安全、尊重差异与各有侧重、战略谋划与务实推进相结合。中国在周边地区积极践行总体国家安全观,可以更好地维护主权、安全、发展核心利益,营造和平稳定的周边环境和推动周边安全共同体建设。但是,总体国家安全观在周边地区的实践过程中也存在安全互信不足、泛安全化、系统效应受限等局限,需要中国与周边国家基于“求同存异”原则,循序渐进地推进周边安全共同体的构建。     

THE SOCIAL ECOLOGY OF PUBLIC SPACE: ACTIVE STREETS AND VIOLENT CRIME IN URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS

Drawing on one element of the discussion by Jacobs ( 1961 ) of the social control benefits of “eyes on the street,” this article explores the link between the prevalence of active streets and violence in urban neighborhoods. Three distinct data sources from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods are merged to explore the functional form and potential contingency of the active streets–violence relationship: 1) video data capturing the presence of people on neighborhood streets; 2) longitudinal data on adolescents (11 to 16 years of age) and their self‐reports of witnessing severe violence; and (3) community survey data on neighborhood social organizational characteristics. The results from multilevel models indicate that the proportion of neighborhood streets with adults present exhibits a nonlinear association with exposure to severe violence. At low prevalence, the increasing prevalence of active streets is positively associated with violence exposure. Beyond a threshold, however, increases in the prevalence of active streets serve to reduce the likelihood of violence exposure. The analyses offer no evidence that the curvilinear association between active streets and violence varies by levels of collective efficacy, and only limited evidence that it varies by anonymity. Analyses of data on homicide and violent victimization corroborate these findings.     

Brightening Up the Silk Road

正China-Central Asia oil and gas pipelines will facilitate the development of the Silk Road Economic Belt At 10:55 p.m.November 13,the screen of the control center of China National Petroleum Corp.(CNPC)reached a milestone,reading that the China-Central Asia natural gas pipelines had been in safe operation