Neighborhood Structure, Crime, and Fear of Crime: Testing Bursik and Grasmick's Neighborhood Control Theory (Criminal Justice Recent Scholarship)

Snell finds that minority neighborhoods with high levels of disorder and low levels of neighborhood interaction and trust have higher crime rates. Poor urban neighborhoods with high levels of disorder and fewer family and friendship networks have high levels of fear of crime. Finally, neighborhood disorder is a factor in explaining crime rates and fear of crime. These findings support Bursik and Grasmick’s Systemic Neighborhood Control Theory: that neighborhood differences in levels of crime and fear of crime result from variations in social control; neighborhood social control is a function of the quality and density of formal and informal networks. The primary purpose of this study was to conduct a test of Bursik and Grasmick's systemic theory of neighborhood crime control. This study is important for several reasons. The first is because Shaw and McKay were among the first criminologists to identify a relationship between ecologically disadvantaged neighborhoods and crime rates. However, their explanation for the process of why neighborhoods are important for understanding crime has been challenged. Bursik and Grasmick's theory has the promise of explaining the mechanisms by which neighborhoods influence crime. A second rationale for this research is that tests of two different dependent variables are conducted, crime rates and fear of crime, with the same theoretical model. Third, with this research, a test is conducted of a relatively new, important theory that has not yet been fully tested. Finally, this book utilizes two different statistical techniques, ordinary least squares regression (OLS) and hierarchical linear analysis, to test the same theoretical model. This has the potential to contribute to the statistical debate concerning the better method to test neighborhood or community-level theories. With hierarchical linear analysis, models of two or three levels of analysis can be tested. The method also allows for an understanding of neighborhood versus individual effects

the Theory, Developed In 1993, Is That Differences In Neighborhood Crime, Victimization, And Fear Of Crime Can Be Explained Best By Variations In The Abilities Of Neighborhoods To Regulate And Control The Behavior Of Their Residents. Snell (juvenile Justice And Psychology, Prairie View A&m U., Texas) Tests It Against Data From Taylor's Crime Changes In Baltimore. He Finds It To Be Partly Vindicated But Suspects Larger Social Factors May Also Play A Role.

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Snell shows how weak primary and secondary relationships, weak parochial and public control, and high levels of disorder relate directly to increased crime and fear of crime in unstable, racially heterogeneous neighborhoods. Over fifty years ago, Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay made one of the most important insights in the field of criminology.