An Ecological Routine Activity Framework Approach to Resident Safety in Violent Urban Neighborhoods

• In Event: Whiteness and Crime: The Role of Power in Inequalities

Abstract

Much of the narrative on violence focuses on minoritized youth living in large urban areas with less attention paid to violence occurring in mid-sized cities predominantly inhabited by whites. There is also less focus on how people navigate their safety within these spaces. To bridge this gap, this study uses data from semi-structured interviews and applies an ecological routine activity framework to explain how inner-city residents cope with violence in neighborhoods with high levels of social problems (e.g., gun violence, opioid overdoses). Findings suggest that respondents who adapted their routine activities at various levels in response to violence in their communities did so even if they did not have a high risk of direct victimization.

Author

• Eileen Ahlin, Penn State University