WG-PLACE 4: Neighbourhoods, Policing, and Legal Cynicism: Spatial, Institutional, and Life Course Perspectives

Session Submission Type: Pre-arranged Panel

Abstract

Policing practices are spatially patterned, shaped by neighbourhood-level structures, and contribute to broader cycles of legal cynicism, inequality, and state control. This panel examines micro- and macro-level dynamics, examining state and neighbourhood mechanisms related to police misconduct and use of force, as well as their influence on individual outcomes across different contexts. The first study develops a micro-macro model of social change, exploring how large-scale social changes since 2016 have shaped social processes in the United States. The second study analyses stop-and-search and police use-of-force incidents in England and Wales, examining the role of neighbourhood dynamics in shaping escalatory encounters involving police use of force and strip searches. The third study investigates police misconduct in Chile, linking structural and individual explanations to office misbehaviour and assessing how institutional structures shape patterns of abuse and state-sanctioned coercion. The final study focuses on the neighbourhood context of aggressive policing in Chicago, linking stop-and-frisk practices to social disorganisation, crime patterns, and citizen complaints. Across these studies, the recursive relationship between macro conditions and policing outcomes are examined, highlighting the role of place in structuring law enforcement practices and their consequences.

Subtopic

• Topic 3: Crime Correlates / Neighborhoods and Crime (WG on Space and Crime)

Chair

• Charles C Lanfear, University of Cambridge

Individual Presentations

• Life-course processes as cause and effect of trends in gun violence - Charles C Lanfear, University of Cambridge; Robert J Sampson, Harvard University

• Stop Searches and the Spatial Distribution of Police Use of Force in the United Kingdom - Amal Ali, London School of Economics; Thiago Oliveira, University of Manchester

• Police misconduct in Chile: What is the role of the institution? - Natalia Cabrera-Morales, University of Cambridge

• The neighborhood context of aggressive policing - David Kirk, University of Pennsylvania; Thiago Oliveira, University of Manchester