A Call for Action: Examining How Residents Mobilize to Effectively Combat Crime

• In Event: Neighborhood Change and Crime

Abstract

Although studies have cross-sectionally identified sociodemographic correlates of neighborhood crime, there is a dearth of research on the mechanisms explaining how neighborhoods, over time, mobilize to effectively combat crime. This study proposes two possible mechanisms: 1) voluntary organizations, and 2) voter turnout. Criminological theories suggest that voluntary organizations may link certain neighborhood characteristics to crime because of their ability to enhance social ties and cohesion and the provision of need-based social services. Voter turnout may also mediate certain neighborhood effects on crime based on the notion that voting is a behavioral indicator of neighborhoods’ capacity for collective action. Alternatively, the effects of voluntary organizations and voter turnout may be moderated by other neighborhood characteristics. Using a large sample of egohoods located across 24 cities from 2000 to 2010, the present study employs structural equation modeling not only to determine the direct effects that voluntary organizations and voter turnout have on crime; but more importantly, it investigates whether these two neighborhood characteristics operate as critical mediators or moderators of certain neighborhood effects on crime. Therefore, this study may help to understand the developmental and cyclical processes by which some neighborhoods become “high crime” neighborhoods whereas others consistently maintain low crime rates.

Author

• James Wo, University of California, Irvine