Combining insights from two distinct research traditions―the communities and crime tradition that focuses on why some neighborhoods have more crime than others, and the burgeoning crime and place literature that focuses on crime in micro-geographic units―this book explores the spatial scale of crime. Criminologist John Hipp articulates a new theoretical perspective that provides an individual- and household-level theory to underpin existing ecological models of neighborhoods and crime. A focus is maintained on the agents of change within neighborhoods and communities, and how households nested in neighborhoods might come to perceive problems in the neighborhood and then have a choice of exit, voice, loyalty, or neglect (EVLN).
A characteristic of many crime incidents is that they happen at a particular spatial location and a point in time. These two simple insights suggest the need for both a spatial and a longitudinal perspective in studying crime events. The spatial question focuses on why crime seems to occur more frequently in some locations than others, and the consequences of this for certain areas of cities, or neighborhoods. The longitudinal component focuses on how crime impacts, and is impacted by, characteristics of the environment. This book looks at where offenders, targets, and guardians might live, and where they might spatially travel throughout the environment, exploring how vibrant neighborhoods are generated, how neighborhoods change, and what determines why some neighborhoods decline over time while others avoid this fate.
Hipp’s theoretical model provides a cohesive response to the general question of the spatial scale of crime and articulates necessary future directions for the field. This book is essential for students and scholars interested in spatial-temporal criminology.
Author(s): John R. Hipp
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 272
City: New York
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 Introduction: Understanding crime in neighborhoods
Introduction
A brief thumbnail history of spatial criminology
Issues to consider from this history
How invariant are our models?
Combining perspectives
Key themes of book
Plan of the book
Chapters of the book
Summary
References
Chapter 2 A general theory of spatial crime patterns: Explaining where crime occurs
Guardians, targets, and offenders
Motivated offenders
Guardians and targets
General theory of spatial crime patterns
Key characteristics of various types of crime: crime dyads and spatial temporality
Who are motivated offenders?
Where offenders travel
Who or what are suitable targets?
Where targets go
Capable guardians and their spatial patterning
Putting this information all together
A priori predictions of the theory
What information is still needed for the model?
Crime pattern theory: precise estimates of where persons go
Summary
Notes
References
Chapter 3 What is a neighborhood?: Spatial social networks and egohoods
What is a neighborhood?
We need a theory to explain residents’ reactions to crime
How have neighborhoods been measured?
What brings about a neighborhood? Principles of neighborhoods
Proximity
Similarity
Familiarity
Collective goods
Measuring neighborhoods
Measuring neighborhoods as network neighborhoods
Egohoods as a conceptualization of neighborhoods
Motivating insights of egohoods
Conceptualizing egohoods
Opportunity theories
Street egohoods
Latent collective action
Summary
Notes
References
Chapter 4 How do we learn about crime and disorder?
Introduction
How do we learn about crime?
Crime: experience it or see it or hear evidence of it
Talk to others to learn about crime
Media provides information about crime
Maybe infer it from the presence of types of people?
Maybe infer crime from the presence of disorder? “Broken windows”
Defining physical and social disorder?
Physical disorder
Social disorder
Is there a tipping point?
How do we measure physical disorder?
How do we measure social disorder?
Physical markers of social disorder
How do we measure crime?
Geographic indeterminacy of measuring disorder and crime
Who sees more physical and social disorder, or more crime?
Depends on the type of people?
Methodological challenges to accounting for spatial heterogeneity
Who perceives more crime and disorder? Types of people
Who sees more crime or disorder? Depends on context
Measuring neighborhood crime based on resident assessments: how accurate?
What types of crime most strongly impact residents’ perceptions?
Summary: what does one do with knowledge of crime and disorder?
Notes
References
Chapter 5 How do residents respond to neighborhood crime?: The EVLN model
Introduction
Residents respond to crime in one of four ways: exit, voice, loyalty, neglect (EVLN)
Neglect
Loyalty
Exit
Household model predicting “exit”
Neighborhood change and differential mobility
Why would residents move into a high-crime neighborhood?
Empirical evidence of income, crime, and mobility
Household race as a discriminating factor
Solving information asymmetry: race/ethnicity as a signal
Consequences of racial bias for the EVLN mobility model
Empirical evidence for disproportionate mobility
Higher transaction costs
Residential mobility may affect those left behind
Does the racial/ethnic context have additional consequences?
Summary: exit, loyalty, and neglect
Notes
References
Chapter 6 Why doesn’t everyone choose “voice”?
Why doesn’t everyone choose “voice”?
Collective action to reduce crime
Short-term activity in response to crime
Why doesn’t everyone choose “voice”? Different types of people?
Choosing “voice” costs “time”
Easier if you already interact with neighbors
General distance: social and physical distance
Propinquity based on residential stability
More willing if economically invested: homeownership
More willing if limited ability to move?
Why doesn’t everyone choose “voice”? Different context
Neighborhood social networks
Less costly (risk) if there is collective efficacy?1
Informal social control
The process of efficacy: updating
Uncertainty regarding collective efficacy
The context in which social control action occurs
Empirical evidence of updating and uncertainty of collective efficacy
Task-specific collective efficacy
Easier through existing organizations (voluntary organizations, churches, etc.)
Changing the form of the public good: neighborhood association participation
Heterogeneous public goods
Role variability and a changing neighborhood
Empirical evidence of disproportionate activity in neighborhood associations
How often do people actually choose “voice”?8
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 7 Social distance, physical distance, and social networks
Networks: what does a “tie” mean?
Why do social ties form?
Propinquity (physical distance)
Homophily (social distance)
Measuring physical and social distance
Consequences of neighborhood networks
How are networks measured?
Impact of neighborhood networks: a simulation study
What networks accomplish
Information flow
Collective goods and response to collective action problems
Cohesion, trust, and social support
Ties to other neighborhoods
Links to other neighborhoods by offenders
The spatial distribution of social ties: consequences for residents in neighborhoods
Spatial ties and fear of crime
Spatial ties and collective efficacy
The built environment and personal social ties
Built environment and cohesion for neighborhoods
Social distance and social cohesion
Social distance and disagreement about collective efficacy
Social distance and crime and disorder
Social distance and violence: inter-group violence
What explains inter- and intra-group violence?
Social space and social interaction
Summary and future directions
Notes
References
Chapter 8 Temporal scale: Stability and dynamic neighborhoods
Introduction
Temporal impact of voluntary organizations
Methodological issues of measuring neighborhood change
Feedback effects from crime
The timing of causal processes
Consequences of the speed of change in neighborhoods
Long-term (historical) effects
Saturation and threshold effects (cross-sectional nonlinear effects)
Perturbation: change itself matters
Asymmetric change
Neighborhood change can occur even without mobility
Mobility model of neighborhood change
Flow measures of neighborhood change
Forced mobility
Foreclosures as forced mobility
Evictions as forced mobility
Imprisonment and parole as forced mobility
Changing business environment
Changing perceptions of offenders
Gentrification: change in socioeconomic composition
Spatial consequences of gentrification
Spatial effects
Feedback effects from crime
Feedback from crime to change in residential instability
Feedback from crime to change in racial composition
Feedback from crime to change in socioeconomic status
Feedback from crime to change in business composition
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 9 Larger units of analysis: How do small-scale processes scale up?
Household decisions affect neighborhood characteristics
What is a city?
Law of crime concentration
What are the theoretical implications of a law of crime concentration?
Challenges to measuring crime concentration
Statistical challenges to measuring crime concentration
Study of cities in Southern California
What is the scale of causal effects: micro, meso, or macro?
Consequence of nonlinear effects on crime
What are the implications of spatial movement for ecology of crime models?
The spatial scale of income and race/ethnicity for crime rates
Considering the proper level of aggregation for the mechanism
The moderating effect of the inequality or heterogeneity context
Broader inequality around the egohood
Spatial inequality and foreclosures
Social distance as a moderator of the foreclosures and crime relationship
The impact of nearby context and city context on neighborhoods
Population at various scales
Population density and population size: population in the micro- and macro-environment
Population and crime in the micro- or macro-environment
Possible moderating effects
Comparing micro-effects over micro- and macro-environment populations
Spatial effect of socio-demographic characteristics
Accounting for the micro and meso level in city-level studies
The metropolitan context, and consequences for city-level crime
The role of redevelopment: gentrification
Changes in parameters over time
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 10 Conclusion: Where are the implications of all this?
Introduction
A household-level model: the EVLN model
Nonlinear temporal neighborhood change
The spatial scale of social distance
Using egohoods to capture spatial fuzziness
At what scale do causal effects operate?
Spatial scale of crime: scaling effects of population
Is the model consistent with these data?
Conclusion
Note
References
Index
