Extralocal Neighborhood Influences on Adolescent Offending

• In Event: Spatial Theory and Measurement

Abstract

A large body of research demonstrates that neighborhood processes are spatially dependent – such that levels of crime and disadvantage in one neighborhood spillover and influence levels of crime in surrounding neighborhoods. Scholars have begun to explore whether similar processes also characterize the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and offending at the individual level. Departing significantly from prior work, this growing body of research indicates that levels of socioeconomic disadvantage in spatially proximate neighborhoods reduces, rather than increases adolescent offending. Theoretical explanations for this phenomenon are scarce, and it remains unclear why socioeconomic deprivation in ‘extralocal’ neighborhoods would exert countervailing influences on youth behavior. The present study builds on recent work by evaluating two theoretical processes linking extralocal neighborhood disadvantage to offending – relative deprivation and opportunity. Drawing on a unique data source combining self-report survey records from a nationally representative sample of adolescents with spatially referenced data on their residential neighborhoods and surrounding communities, we find that affluence in extralocal neighborhoods increases externalizing forms of delinquency, as theories of relative deprivation would predict. In contrast, we find little evidence that extralocal affluence translates into greater opportunities to engage in acquisitive forms of delinquency, as suggested by theories of structured opportunity.

Authors

• Matt Vogel, University of Missouri - St. Louis

• Scott South, University at Albany, SUNY