Robberies with guns: Neighborhood factors and the nature of crime

Over the past two decades, both research and policy related to crime have increasingly focused on community characteristics. Neighborhood level studies of crime have provided important insights into the factors related to variation in the quantity of crime across place, and have suggested policies for controlling crime. At the same time, however, little attention has been given to the potential impact of neighborhood characteristics on the nature, or quality, of crime. Examinations of variation in the nature of violent crime across communities has only recently begun to be empirically examined (see for example, Baumer, Horney, Felson, & Lauritsen, 2003; Kubrin, 2003; Kubrin & Wadsworth, 2003; Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003; Miles-Doan, 1998; Wadsworth & Kubrin, 2004), and these studies were limited in the number and type of neighborhood variables examined. The current study extended this developing literature on neighborhood variation in the nature of violence through its examination of several neighborhood factors theorized to be associated with qualitatively different forms of violence. Specifically, this study examined neighborhood variables associated with a structurally induced subculture of violence in relation to robberies with and without guns. The analysis was based on noncommercial robberies that occurred in twenty-nine neighborhoods in one city. Findings suggested that faith in the police was a more important neighborhood factor affecting the nature of robbery than disadvantage, the percent young African-American males, or oppositional values.