How Observable Physical Features of Religious Congregations Affect Crime Across Chicago Neighborhoods

• In Event: Crime, Law and Deviance Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 7: Neighborhoods and Crime

Abstract

A growing body of research considers the role of religious congregations in structuring community patterns of crime across urban areas. On the one hand, congregations are expected to reduce crime by bolstering mechanisms of social control. Alternatively, scholars suggest communities may experience more crime if congregations weaken social cohesion or generate criminal opportunities. We build on this literature by proposing and empirically assessing an additional pathway through which congregations may shape neighborhood-level crime. Specifically, we merge insights from the sociology of religion, psychology, and criminological theories of place to argue that the visible presence of congregations in space may send moral or normative signals that prioritize conformity. Furthermore, these signals are tied to the physical features of congregations’ meeting sites such that congregations gathering in buildings with religious architectural styles are more visible and, by extension, have a stronger influence on neighborhood crime patterns, than congregations meeting in less visible spaces such as apartments or offices. To evaluate these assertions, we merge information from a novel dataset of congregations in Chicago with information from the Chicago Police Department and the US Census. Neighborhood-level analyses reveal that a greater density of congregations with religious architectural styles, storefront congregations, and house congregations (or buildings that magnify the visibility of congregations) are all negatively associated with crime, even after controlling for conventional measures of religious ecology as well as structural characters of neighborhoods demonstrated to be related to crime. In contrast, the density of congregations in apartments and offices (or buildings that minimize the visibility of congregations) shows no relation to crime, which supports the claim that the physical visibility of congregations, not just their presence, matters. Overall, this paper reveals an additional way in which religious congregations may shape neighborhood dynamics and promote community wellbeing.

Authors

• Ricardo David Martinez-Schuldt, Rutgers University-New Brunswick

• Kraig Beyerlein, University of Notre Dame