Linking Contextual Environments, Institutionally Isolated Youth, and Crime

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

This study advances the literature linking structural disadvantage, the institutional isolation of youth, and levels of crime. Institutional attachments are essential to mainstream cultural learning, the development of local network ties, and pro-social behavior. Communities that fail to embed residents, particularly youth, within a conventional institutional framework are ill-equipped for concerted action and unable to solve common problems, including crime. Prior analyses of large aggregate units (i.e. counties) support a mediation model in which structural disadvantage fosters institutional isolation or disengagement among youth, which, in turn, elevates crime. The current study investigates this mediation effect using a unit of analysis that more closely approximates neighborhoods, census tracts. Specifically, we draw on tract-level census and crime data in a medium size city to explore whether structural disadvantage and residential stability are associated with a larger population of youth who are simultaneously disengaged from mainstream social institutions. In addition, we explore whether the disengaged youth population mediates the effects of disadvantage and residential stability on levels of violent and property crime. Our tract-level analyses demonstrate the utility of using an aggregate measure of institutional isolation among youth as an intervening mechanism linking structural disadvantage and residential stability to crime rates.

Authors

• Shaun Thomas, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

• Grant Drawve, University of Arkansas at Little Rock