Still Getting Paid? Neighborhood Change and Crime

• In Event: Saving the Neighborhood?: Private Crime Control, Gentrification, and the Collateral Consequences of Mass Incarceration

Abstract

Mercer Sullivan’s book Getting Paid: Youth Crime and Work in the Inner City (1989) remains a frequently cited study of neighborhood effects on crime, notabable for its comparative analysis of three distinctive neighborhoods of Brooklyn, N.Y. Since the time of the original study, both the study of neighborhood effects and the three neighborhoods have changed considerably. Building on the findings of the original study, this paper examines the original neighborhoods as they are today, how they have changed as neighborhoods, and how they have changed in patterns of criminal activity. Census and police data are analyzed in terms of how the neighborhoods have changed both in comparison to the way they were in the 1980’s as well as in relation to how they fit into the larger urban fabric of which they are part. The fabric of daily life in these areas is examined on the basis of observations and interviews with current residents. The results are discussed in the context of current theories about neighborhood effects and the relationships between populations, localities, and political economy.

Authors

• Mercer L. Sullivan, Rutgers University

• Ric Curtis, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

• Elizabeth Griffiths, Rutgers University