Unpacking the Paradox of Network Ties: The Moderating Effect of Criminal Context on Victimization and Collective Efficacy

• In Event: Posters I

Abstract

The consistency of neighboring ties to produce social control, as proposed by social disorganization theory and its extensions, has been challenged in recent work and has led to more nuanced theorizing among neighborhood scholars. Negotiated coexistence theory posits that strong neighboring ties between criminal and non-criminal residents actually reduce social control by increasing the negotiating power of the criminal element. However, a direct inclusion of the criminal element is absent from extant work. In the present study, the authors draw from negotiated coexistence theory to directly test whether criminal context moderates the relationship between neighboring and victimization, as well as neighboring and collective efficacy (a measure of social control combined with neighborhood cohesion), separately for men and women using ordinary least squares regression models. Findings advance our understanding of how context matters in the development of neighboring ties for victimization and collective efficacy outcomes.

Authors

• Jaclyn Marie Cwick, Grand Valley State University

• Elaine Eggleston Doherty, University of Missouri - St. Louis

• Margaret Ensminger, Johns Hopkins University