Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-9f2xs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-04T01:28:59.112Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - How does community context matter? Social mechanisms and the explanation of crime rates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

By
Robert J. Sampson
Edited by
Per-Olof H. Wikström  and
Robert J. Sampson
Robert J. Sampson
Affiliation:
Professor of Social Sciences Department of Sociology, Harvard University
Per-Olof H. Wikström
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Robert J. Sampson
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

The idea of “community” is at once compelling and frustrating. Indeed, few would disagree that at some fundamental level a community's social context matters for crime. Yet the concept is sufficiently vague that it risks becoming meaningless – if community context is all things to all people then it is simply a metaphor with no real explanatory power. What is a community? Neighborhood? Even if we can agree on the unit of analysis, what exactly about the community is doing the explaining? Do communities act? What is the mechanism at work?

In this chapter I shall attempt to make some explanatory progress by setting out a conceptual framework for thinking about community social context and crime. In its pure form my claim is not only that communities matter but also that we need not have to explain individual criminal behavior. Multi-level integration is all the rage these days, but to demonstrate a causal effect of community does not necessarily require individuals as units of analysis. As I shall elaborate, a theory of crime rates, especially one that aims to explain how neighborhoods fare as units of social control over their own public spaces in the here and now, is logically not the same theoretical enterprise as explaining how neighborhoods exert long-term or developmental effects that ultimately translate into individual crime (Wikström & Sampson, 2003). Both sets of mechanisms may be at work, but one does not compel the other.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Explanation of Crime
Context, Mechanisms and Development
 , pp. 31 - 60
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bandura, Albert (1997). Self Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Bellair, Paul E. (1997). “Social interaction and community crime: examining the importance of neighbour networks.” Criminology 35: 677–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellair, Paul E. (2000). “Informal surveillance and street crime: a complex relationship.” Criminology 38: 137–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, Donald (1983). “Crime as social control.” American Sociological Review 48: 34–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Block, Richard (1977). Violent Crime: Environment, Interaction, and Death. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Boruch, Robert & Foley, Ellen, (2000). “The honestly experimental society: sites and other entities as the units of allocation and analysis in randomised trials.” In Bickman, L. (ed.), Validity and Social Experimentation: Donald T. Campbell's Legacy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Duncan, Greg, & Aber, Lawrence, eds. (1997). Neighbourhood Poverty, vol. II: Policy Implications in Studying Neighbourhoods. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Duncan, Greg, Klebanov, Pamela, & Sealand, Naomi (1993). “Do neighborhoods influence child and adolescent development?” American Journal of Sociology 99: 353–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunge, Mario (2004). “How does it work? The search for explanatory mechanisms.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34: 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Jackie & Tita, George (1999). “Diffusion in homicide: exploring a general method for detecting spatial diffusion processes.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 15: 451–493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Lawrence, Kluegel, James, & Land, Kenneth (1981). “Social inequality and predatory criminal victimization: an exposition and test of a formal theory.” American Sociological Review 46: 505–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, James S. (1986). “Social theory, social research, and a theory of action.” American Journal of Sociology 91: 1309–1335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, James S. (1988). “Social capital in the creation of human capital.” American Journal of Sociology 94: S95–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Thomas, Shagle, Shobha, & Degirmencioglu, Serdar (1997). “Capturing social process for testing mediational models of neighborhood effects.” In Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Duncan, Greg, & Aber, Lawrence (eds.), Neighbourhood Poverty, vol. II: Policy Implications in Studying Neighbourhoods. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Coulton, Claudia J., Korbin, Jill E., & Su, M. (1999). “Neighbourhoods and child maltreatment: a multi-level study.” Child Abuse and Neglect 23: 1019–1040.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elliott, Delbert, Wilson, William J., Huizinga, David, Sampson, Robert, Elliott, Amanda, & Rankin, Bruce (1996). “The effects of neighborhood disadvantage on adolescent development.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 33: 389–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farrington, David P. (1993). “Have any individual, family, or neighborhood influences on offending been demonstrated conclusively?” In Farrington, David P., Sampson, Robert, & Wikström, Per-Olof (eds.), Integrating Individual and Ecological Aspects of Crime. Stockholm: Allmaana Forlaget.Google Scholar
Goering, John & Feins, Judith, eds. (2003). Choosing a Better Life? Evaluating the Moving to Opportunity Experiment. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.Google Scholar
Grannis, Rick (1998). “The importance of trivial streets: residential streets and residential segregation.” American Sociological Review 103(6): 1530–1564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Granovetter, Mark S. (1973). “The strength of weak ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78: 1360–1380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janowitz, Morris (1975). “Sociological theory and social control.” American Journal of Sociology 81: 82–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, Lawrence F., Kling, Jeff, & Liebman, Jeff (2001). “Moving to opportunity in Boston: early results of a randomised mobility experiment.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 116(2): 607–654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kornhauser, Ruth (1978). Social Sources of Delinquency. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kubrin, Charis E. & Weitzer, Ronald (2003). “New directions in social disorganization theory.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 40: 374–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Land, Kenneth, McCall, Patricia, & Cohen, Lawrence (1990). “Structural covariates of homicide rates: are there any invariances across time and space?” American Journal of Sociology 95: 922–963.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lander, Bernard (1954). Toward an Understanding of Juvenile Delinquency. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Ludwig, Jens, Hirschfield, Paul, & Duncan, Greg J. (2001). “Urban poverty and juvenile crime: evidence from a randomised housing-mobility experiment.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 116(2): 665–679.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markowitz, Fred, Bellair, Paul, Liska, Allen & Liu, Jianhong (2001). “Extending social disorganization theory: modelling the relationships between cohesion, disorder, and fear.” Criminology 39: 293–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marwell, Nicole (2005). “Beyond neighborhood social control: from interaction to institutions.” Unpublished paper, Department of Sociology, Columbia University.
Massey, Douglas S. (1996). “The age of extremes: concentrated affluence and poverty in the twenty-first century.” Demography 33: 395–412.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mayer, Susan & Jencks, Christopher (1989). “Growing up in poor neighborhoods: how much does it matter?” Science 243: 1441–1445.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McRoberts, Omar (2003). Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighbourhood.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Messner, Steven, Anselin, Luc, Baller, Rob, Hawkins, Darnell, Deane, Glenn, & Tolnay, Stewart (1999). “The spatial patterning of county homicide rates: an application of exploratory spatial data analysis.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 15: 423–450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morenoff, Jeffrey & Sampson, Robert J. (1997). “Violent crime and the spatial dynamics of neighborhood transition: Chicago, 1970–1990.” Social Forces 76: 31–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morenoff, Jeffrey D., Sampson, Robert J. & Raudenbush, Stephen (2001). “Neighbourhood inequality, collective efficacy, and the spatial dynamics of homicide.” Criminology 39: 517–560.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, Robert (1916). “Suggestions for the investigations of human behavior in the urban environment.” American Journal of Sociology 20: 577–612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, Robert & Burgess, Ernest (1925). The City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pattillo, Mary (1999). Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Peterson, Ruth D., Krivo, Lauren J., & Harris, Mark A. (2000). “Disadvantage and neighborhood violent crime: do local institutions matter?” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 37: 31–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pratt, Travis & Cullen, Frances (2005). “Assessing macro-level predictors and theories of crime: a meta-analysis.” In Tonry, Michael (ed.), Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, vol. XXXII. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Portes, Alejandro & Sensenbrenner, Julia (1993). “Embeddedness and immigration: notes on the social determinants of economic action.” American Journal of Sociology 98: 1320–1350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raudenbush, Stephen W. & Sampson, Robert J. (1999). “‘Ecometrics’: toward a science of assessing ecological settings, with application to the systematic social observation of neighborhoods.” Sociological Methodology 29: 1–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reiss, Albert J. & Roth, Jeff, eds. (1993). Understanding and Preventing Violence, vol. I. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, R., Bray, T. M., & Egley, A. (1999). “Facilitating violence: a comparison of gang-motivated, gang-affiliated, and nongang youth homicides.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 15(4): 495–516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, Catherine, Reynolds, J. R., & Geis, K. J. (2000). “The contingent meaning of neighborhood stability for residents' psychological well-being.” American Sociological Review 65: 581–597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rountree, Pamela & Warner, Barbara (1999). “Social ties and crime: is the relationship gendered?” Criminology 37: 789–813.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sampson, Robert J., McAdam, Doug, MacIndoe, Heather, & Weffer, Simòn (2005). “Civil society reconsidered: the durable nature and community structure of collective civic action.” American Journal of Sociology, 111: 673–714.
Sampson, Robert J., Morenoff, Jeffrey, & Earls, Felton (1999). “Beyond social capital: spatial dynamics of collective efficacy for children.” American Sociological Review 64: 633–660.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sampson, Robert J., Morenoff, Jeffrey D., & Gannon-Rowley, Thomas (2002). “Assessing neighborhood effects: social processes and new directions in research.” Annual Review of Sociology 28: 443–478.CrossRef
Sampson, Robert J., Morenoff, Jeffrey D., & Raudenbush, Stephen (2005). “Social anatomy of racial and ethnic disparities in violence.” American Journal of Public Health 95: 224–232.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sampson, Robert J. & Raudenbush, Stephen (1999). “Systematic social observation of public spaces: a new look at disorder in urban neighborhoods.” American Journal of Sociology 105: 603–651.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sampson, Robert J. & Raudenbush, Stephen (2004). “Seeing disorder: neighborhood stigma and the social construction of broken windows.” Social Psychology Quarterly 67: 319–342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sampson, Robert J., Raudenbush, Stephen, & Earls, Felton (1997). “Neighbourhoods and violent crime: a multilevel study of collective efficacy.” Science 277: 918–924.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sampson, Robert J. & Wikström, Per-Olof (2005). “The social order of violence in Chicago and Stockholm neighborhoods.” In Kalyvas, Stathis, Shapiro, Ian, and Masoud, Tarek (eds.), Order, Conflict, and Violence. New York: Cambridge University Press .Google Scholar
Sikkema, K. J., Kelly, J. A., Winett, R. A., Solomon, L. J., Cargill, V. A., Roffman, R. A., McAuliffe, T. L., Heckman, T. G., Anderson, E. A., Wagstaff, D. A., Norman, A. D., Perry, M. J., Crumble, D. A. & Mercer, M. B. (2000). “Outcomes of a randomised community-Level HIV prevention intervention for women living in 18 low-income housing developments.” American Journal of Public Health 90: 57–63.Google Scholar
Smith, W. R., Frazee, S. G., & Davison, E. L. (2000). “Furthering the integration of routine robbery as a diffusion process.” Criminology 38: 489–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sorensen, Aage B. (1998). “Theoretical mechanisms and the empirical study of social processes.” In Hedström, Peter & Swedberg, Richard (eds.), Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
South, Scott J. & Baumer, Eric P. (2000). “Deciphering community and race effects on adolescent premarital childbearing.” Social Forces 78: 1379–1407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suttles, Gerald (1972). The Social Construction of Communities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Ralph B. (2001). Breaking Away from Broken Windows: Baltimore Neighbourhoods and the Nationwide Fight Against Crime, Grime, Fear, and Decline. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Taylor, Ralph B. (2002). “Fear of crime, local social ties, and collective efficacy: maybe masquerading measurement, maybe déjà vu all over again.” Justice Quarterly 19: 773–792.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, Charles (1973). “Do communities act?” Sociological Inquiry 43: 209–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Triplett, Ruth A., Gainey, Randy R., & Sun, Ivan Y. (2003). “Institutional strength, social control and neighborhood crime rates.” Theoretical Criminology 7: 439–467.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veysey, B. M. & Messner, S. F. (1999). “Further testing of social disorganization theory: an elaboration of Sampson and Groves's ‘Community Structure and Crime’.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 36: 156–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warner, Barbara & Rountree, Pamela (1997). “Local social ties in a community and crime model: questioning the systemic nature of informal social control.” Social Problems 44: 520–536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheaton, Blair & Clarke, Philippa (2003). “Space meets time: integrating temporal and contextual influences on mental health in early adulthood.” American Sociological Review 68: 680–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wikström, Per-Olof & Ceccato, Vania (2004). “Crime and social life: a space-time budget study.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Nashville, TN, November.
Wikström, Per-Olof & Sampson, Robert J. (2003). “Social mechanisms of community influences on crime and pathways in criminality.” In Lahey, Benjamin B., Moffitt, Terrie E. & Caspi, Avshalom (eds.), Causes of Conduct Disorder and Serious Juvenile Delinquency. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, James Q. & Kelling, George (1982). “The police and neighborhood safety: broken windows.” Atlantic Monthly 127: 29–38.Google Scholar
Wilson, William Julius (1987). The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Winship, Christopher & Morgan, Stephen (1999). “The estimation of causal effects from observational data.” Annual Review of Sociology 25: 659–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×