Interrogating the Relationship of Rapid Population Growth with Violence in a Suburban City

• In Event: Roundtable: Efforts to Engage with Urban Bias in Neighborhood Studies of Crime

Abstract

Contemporary research on the relationship of rapid growth with crime has largely focused on “boomtowns” that develop in rural areas near resource extraction sites. Much of this research reported that population growth in boomtowns was associated with increased violence, but findings were mixed because of variation in the dependent variable examined and the analysis strategy that was used. A recent study extended research on the boomtown-crime relationship to the suburban context and found that rapid population growth was not associated with changes in arrests for violent and property crime in the Dallas suburb of Frisco, Texas. The findings of that study raised questions about whether rapid population growth was associated with changes in crime in all contexts. The current study engages with this issue by examining the relationship of population growth with changes in calls for service and arrest for aggravated assault, simple assault and family violence. Preliminary results indicate that population growth was differentially associated with changes in calls for service and arrests for specific forms of violent crime at the city and neighborhood level.

Authors

• Michael Scott Barton, University of Alabama

• Briana Anderson, University of Alabama

• Caitlin Charles, Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center