Neighborhood Structure, Crime, and Fear of Crime: Testing Bursik and Grasmick's Neighborhood Control Theory (Criminal Justice Recent Scholarship)

168 Pages·2001·0.564 MB·English

by  Clete Snell

Criminal Justice
Recent Scholarship
Edited by
Marilyn McShane and Frank P. Williams III
A Series from LFB Scholarly
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Neighborhood Structure, Crime,
and Fear of Crime
Testing Bursik and Grasmick(cid:146)s
Neighborhood Control Theory
Clete Snell
LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC
New York 2001
Copyright ' 2001 by LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Snell, Clete.
Neighborhood structure, crime, and fear of crime : testing
Bursik and Grasmick’s neighborhood control theory / Clete Snell.
p. cm. -- (Criminal justice recent scholarship)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-931202-07-9 (alk. paper)
1. Sociology, Urban--Research. 2. Social control. 3. Social
networks. 4. Crime. 5. Fear of crime. I. Title. II. Series.
HT110 .S64 2001
307.76’072--dc21
2001002453
ISBN 1-931202-07-9
Printed on acid-free 250-year-life paper.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1.........................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION.............................................................................1
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY...................................................2
CHAPTER 2.........................................................................................5
BURSIK AND GRASMICK’S SYSTEMIC THEORY OF
NEIGHBORHOOD CONTROL........................................................5
THE THEORETICAL MODEL....................................................5
PROPOSITIONS AND HYPOTHESES.....................................14
DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS...................................................17
CHAPTER 3.......................................................................................23
PREVIOUS ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH......................................23
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................23
SHAW AND MCKAY(cid:146)S SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION
THEORY.....................................................................................24
SOCIOECONOMIC COMPOSITION........................................34
RESIDENTIAL STABILITY......................................................35
RACIAL AND ETHNIC HETEROGENEITY............................36
DISORDER.................................................................................37
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY RELATIONSHIPS.................43
FEAR OF CRIME........................................................................48
CONCEPTUAL AND MEASUREMENT PROBLEMS IN
ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH......................................................54
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vi Table of Contents
CHAPTER 4.......................................................................................59
METHODOLOGY..........................................................................59
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................59
CRIME CHANGES IN BALTIMORE DATA............................60
ANALYSIS PLAN......................................................................65
OPERATIONALIZATION OF CONCEPTS..............................66
HIERARCHICAL LINEAR MODELING..................................92
LIMITATIONS............................................................................96
CHAPTER 5.......................................................................................97
FINDINGS.......................................................................................97
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................97
MODEL 1: EXPLAINING CRIME RATES...............................98
MODEL 2: EXPLAINING FEAR OF CRIME.........................107
CHAPTER 7.....................................................................................133
SUMMARY AND.........................................................................133
DISCUSSION................................................................................133
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................133
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS...................134
CONCLUSION..........................................................................143
REFERENCES..............................................................................145
INDEX...........................................................................................155
Acknowledgements
This book was developed from my doctoral dissertation
while at Sam Houston State University. I am grateful to the
College of Criminal Justice at SHSU for all I have received
while I was there. I am especially grateful to Margaret
Farnworth for agreeing to chair my dissertation and Ruth
Triplett for all her guidance during my doctoral career.
Finally, I want to thank Marilyn McShane for her helpful
suggestions in the completion of this book.
vii
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CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Over fifty years ago, Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay
made one of the most important insights in the field of
criminology. High rates of crime and delinquency can
persist in certain neighborhoods despite complete turnovers
of the racial and ethnic population (Shaw and McKay,
1942). This led Shaw and McKay to the conclusion that
delinquency could not be adequately explained by
characteristics associated with individuals such as race,
ethnicity, nationality, and intelligence. Rather delinquency
was intimately associated with the characteristics of
particular neighborhoods.
Despite the influence of Shaw and McKay on the field
of criminology for many years, the discipline had shifted its
focus back toward individual-level explanations of
delinquency throughout much of the 1970’s and 80’s. Only
in recent years have "kinds of places" or contextual (Stark,
1996, p. 128) explanations become accepted again
(Sampson, 1997).
In (cid:147)Neighborhoods and Crime: The Dimensions of
Effective Community Control(cid:148) (1993), Bursik and
Grasmick proposed a (cid:147)systemic theory of neighborhood
control.(cid:148) Their theory is a reformulation of a social
disorganization model. The central thesis of Bursik and
Grasmick(cid:146)s theory is that differences in neighborhood
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