Robbing the Rich to Give to the Poor: Neighborhood Frames, Enabling Criminal Mutualism, and Neighborhood Structure

• In Event: Neighborhood Change and Crime

Abstract

How do neighborhood attributes and frames influence the persistence of local criminal activities? This paper utilizes ethnographic and interview data to explain the persistence of a criminal activity on Chicago’s South Side: freight train burglary. The paper hypothesizes that the persistence of freight burglary can be explained by the evolution of the way freight burglars frame and understand their local criminal opportunities. This process reinforces ecologically driven and institutionalized crime patterns and creates a feedback loop that differentiates the neighborhood and its participating residents from those in nearby communities. More specifically, this paper parses how current and former train burglars developed an enabling ecologically driven frame involving criminal mutualism, a community-driven conceptual framework that organized their perception of experiences and actions towards the mutually beneficial attributes of freight robbery. In the process, the case provides the opportunity to test the limits of how broken window theory and routine activity theory explain criminal activity, and how frames can enhance these perspectives and illustrate their shortcomings.

Author

• David Schalliol, St. Olaf College