Violence in Urban Neighborhoods: A Longitudinal Examination of Neighborhood Structure, Social Processes and Violent Crime

• In Event: Spatial Longitudinal Processes and Crime

Abstract

Violence is a significant problem in Australia, with rates of assault increasing annually over the last decade. Studies show that violence is geographically clustered. Social disorganization theories contend that this is because certain neighborhoods provide fertile ground for the development of serious crime. The central theoretical proposition underpinning this body of work is that over time neighborhood structural characteristics (like poverty, racial/ethnic concentration and residential instability) breakdown the key regulatory social processes associated with maintaining order and that this, in turn, allows serious crime to flourish. Using a unique, longitudinal dataset, employing four waves of survey data for 4,000 residents living in 148 Brisbane neighborhoods combined with census and crime data, this paper examines the reciprocal relationships between neighborhood structure, networks, informal social control and violence over time. In so doing we identify the most salient neighborhood characteristics and processes that impact on the persistence or cessation of violence.

Authors

• Rebecca Leigh Wickes, University of Queensland

• John R. Hipp, University of California, Irvine