SOCIAL INTERACTION AND COMMUNITY CRIME: EXAMINING THE IMPORTANCE OF NEIGHBOR NETWORKS

1997/11/01 by PAUL E. BELLAIR, Paul E. Bellair · 19 citations
Social Sciences · Environmental Science · #Crime Patterns and Interventions #Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance #Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.1997.tb01235.x

Abstract

The social disorganization perspective assumes that social interaction among neighbors is a central element in the control of community crime. Moreover, social interaction among neighbors that occurs frequently, such as every day, is assumed to be most effective. This analysis tests that assumption by exploring the consequences of frequent and infrequent interaction. I construct 10 alternative measures of social interaction and separately examine the effect of each on the rates of three serious crimes across 60 urban neighborhoods. Findings suggest that type of interaction matters. Getting together once a year or more with neighbors has the most consistent and generally strongest effect on burglary, motor vehicle theft, and robbery. Further this form of interaction mediates a significant proportion of the effect of ecological characteristics on community crime. Implications for community crime research are discussed.

Citations

• Local Friendship Ties and Community Attachment in Mass Society: A Multilevel Systemic Model
• Community Structure and Crime: Testing Social-Disorganization Theory
• SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION AND THEORIES OF CRIME AND DELINQUENCY: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS*
• The Strength of Weak Ties

Cited by

• INTERGROUP AND INTRAGROUP VIOLENCE: IS VIOLENT CRIME AN EXPRESSION OF GROUP CONFLICT OR SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION?*
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• CLOSE‐UPS AND THE SCALE OF ECOLOGY: LAND USES AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF SOCIAL CONTEXT AND CRIME
• SOCIAL TIES AND CRIME: IS THE RELATIONSHIP GENDERED?*
• Social Disorganization Theory and the Contextual Nature of Crime in Nonmetropolitan Counties*
• Religious Communities, Immigration, and Social Cohesion in Rural Areas: Evidence from England*
• Urban Revitalization and Seattle Crime, 1982−2000
• Socioeconomic Dynamics of Neighborhoods and the Risk of Crime Victimization: A Multilevel Study of Improving, Declining, and Stable Areas in the Netherlands
• Using small data to interpret big data: 311 reports as individual contributions to informal social control in urban neighborhoods
• Disentangling the reciprocal relationship between change in crime and racial/ethnic change
• Assessing “Neighborhood Effects”: Social Processes and New Directions in Research
• Flexibility in Variable Operationalization in Social Disorganizartion Theory: A Pilot Study
• Clarifying the Effects of Neighborhood Context on Violence “Behind Closed Doors”
• The effect of urban street gang densities on small area homicide incidence in a large metropolitan county, 1994-2002. [europepmc]
• Community severance and health: what do we actually know? [europepmc]
• Bicycle Facilities That Address Safety, Crime, and Economic Development: Perceptions from Morelia, Mexico. [europepmc]
• Community vibrancy and its relationship with safety in Philadelphia. [europepmc]
• An exploratory assessment model for preventing individual extreme violent crimes from a social control perspective-a qualitative study of four Chinese cases. [europepmc]
• Land security and crop theft in rural Tanzania. [europepmc]

Related

• New Directions in Social Disorganization Theory
• Connected in Crime: The Enduring Effect of Neighborhood Networks on the Spatial Patterning of Violence
• Community Structure and Crime: Testing Social-Disorganization Theory
• SOCIAL TIES AND CRIME: IS THE RELATIONSHIP GENDERED?*
• Explaining High-Risk Concentrations of Crime in the City