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Criminology Community Disadvantage and Crime
by
Robert J. Fornango

Introduction

The literature on community disadvantage and crime covers a broad spectrum of topics. At the heart of the issue is the need to understand why crime rates are consistently positively correlated with community poverty, inequality, normative adaptations, and other social problems. Over time, disadvantage has been conceptualized and operationalized in a variety of forms such as absolute poverty, relative poverty or economic inequality, and measures of unemployment and joblessness indicating labor-market accessibility. These economic dimensions of disadvantage have also been supplemented with several social or cultural indicators such as the prevalence of single-parent families, racial minority population composition, and measures of educational achievement such as high school dropout rates. More recent research has also combined sets of indicators to form multidimensional indexes of concentrated disadvantage. The relationship between community disadvantage and crime has also been studied across numerous levels of aggregation, including neighborhood-level analyses within cities, across samples of large cities, and across metropolitan areas. Broadly stated, the theoretical mechanisms that link community disadvantage to crime include macrostructural forces that differentially concentrate disadvantage among specific populations, the concomitant social isolation and cultural adaptation of disadvantaged populations, and the weakening of systemic networks of social control.

General Overviews

There are several general overviews of community structure that are relevant to the study of disadvantage and crime. Wilson 1987 presents the author’s thesis on the truly disadvantaged, describing how social and economic transformations in the United States after World War II have disproportionately concentrated urban poverty in predominantly minority communities that experience severe social isolation and concentrated disadvantage. Wilson 1996 also details the experiences of those living in urban poverty and presents policy implications for addressing issues of race, poverty, and other social problems. Hagan and Peterson 1995 presents an edited volume that broadly examines social inequality and crime. Brooks-Gunn, et al. 1997a and Brooks-Gunn, et al. 1997b provide a two-volume set detailing the consequences, including crime, for youth development and family processes of growing up in disadvantaged communities, as well as describing public policy implications derived from the neighborhood disadvantage literature. Small and Newman 2001 presents a review of the urban poverty literature inspired by Wilson 1987. Sampson, et al. 2002 reviews the “neighborhood effects” literature developed during the 1990s, and discusses methodological issues and theoretical directions to pursue in future research. Peterson and Krivo 2005 also provides a review of research on the racial invariance hypothesis presented by Sampson and Wilson 1995 (see Racial Invariance Hypothesis). Finally, Pratt and Cullen 2005 performs a meta-analytic review of macro-level research on crime.

  • Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Greg J. Duncan, and J. Lawrence Aber, eds. 1997a. Neighborhood poverty. Vol. 1, Context and consequences for children. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

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    A collection of essays that explores the influence of community disadvantage on child and adolescent development, both in terms of cognitive ability and education, but also in terms of health, family, and social outcomes. The first volume in a two-volume set.

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  • Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Greg J. Duncan, and J. Lawrence Aber, eds. 1997b. Neighborhood poverty. Vol. 2, Policy implications in studying neighborhoods. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

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    A collection of essays describing conceptual and methodological issues in performing neighborhood-level research, successful program and policy initiatives, and new directions for policy implementation designed to ameliorate the detrimental effects of neighborhood poverty. The second volume in a two-volume set.

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  • Hagan, John, and Ruth D. Peterson, eds. 1995. Crime and inequality. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.

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    A collection of essays describing the manner in which inequality across race, gender, economic level, and community shapes crime over time both at the individual and macro level. Additional essays provide insights into the role of inequality in formal social-control institutions and policy implications.

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  • Peterson, Ruth D., and Lauren J. Krivo. 2005. Macrostructural analyses of race, ethnicity, and violent crime: Recent lessons and new directions for research. Annual Review of Sociology 31:331–356.

    DOI: 10.1146/annurev.soc.31.041304.122308Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors review literature inspired by the racial invariance hypothesis of Sampson and Wilson 1995 (see Racial Invariance Hypothesis). The review points to the need for additional research on issues of ethnicity and gender and crime, spatial isolation processes, the role of the criminal justice system, and the use of multilevel studies, as well as in multiple contexts beyond large central cities.

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  • Pratt, Travis C., and Fancis T. Cullen. 2005. Assessing macro-level predictors and theories of crime: A meta-analysis. Crime and Justice 32:373–450.

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    A meta-analysis of macro-level research on crime. The authors find clear importance for concentrated disadvantage in explaining crime at a variety of levels of aggregation. Additional factors are found to be important as well, and the authors provide directions for future research and theoretical integration, as well as public policy.

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  • Sampson, Robert J., Jeffrey D. Morenoff, and Thomas Gannon-Rowley. 2002. Assessing “neighborhood effects”: Social processes and new directions in research. Annual Review of Sociology 28:443–478.

    DOI: 10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.141114Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors review recent developments in neighborhood effects, and point to several new directions for research including better conceptualization and operationalization of neighborhoods, the use of systemic social observation, the spatial dynamics of child development, studies of neighborhood change, and the benchmarking of data for comparability across studies.

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  • Small, Mario, and Katherine Newman. 2001. Urban poverty after The Truly Disadvantaged: The rediscovery of the family, the neighborhood, and culture. Annual Review of Sociology 27:23–45.

    DOI: 10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.23Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors review literature inspired by Wilson 1987. They call for future research to address comparative studies across places and times, to complement the study of poverty with better attention to culture and various forms of social capital, and to focus on other groups aside from blacks and whites.

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  • Wilson, William Julius. 1987. The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

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    Wilson’s seminal book on the creation of the urban underclass during the 1970s and 1980s. He points to key social and economic transformations in the United States that conspired to concentrate multiple forms of social and economic disadvantage in, and socially isolate, predominantly poor, black, urban neighborhoods.

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  • Wilson, William Julius. 1996. When work disappears: The world of the new urban poor. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

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    Wilson expands on The Truly Disadvantaged (Wilson 1987) to discuss the consequences of prolonged exposure to socially isolated, poor communities. Particular attention is given to policy implications surrounding issues of race, inequality, and social problems in urban neighborhoods.

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Data Sources

The most common source for data on community disadvantage is the US Census Bureau. The Decennial Census collects detailed data on population characteristics for all individuals, families, and households in America. The American Community Survey is also conducted by the Census Bureau and collects annual data from samples of respondents in cities. The Current Population Survey is conducted on a monthly basis with a nationally representative sample of households, collecting detailed economic and occupational data. The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) also warehouses several datasets that may be used to study community disadvantage and crime.

Theoretical Perspectives

Several major theoretical perspectives focus on the relationship between disadvantage and crime. Some perspectives focus specifically on community or neighborhood contexts, while others are more generally stated in terms of the social-psychological mechanisms through which disadvantage may produce crime. Cultural perspectives argue that disadvantaged populations are more likely to adopt oppositional subcultures that differ significantly from mainstream society, and they place greater emphasis on normative processes that may lead to crime and violence. Social-disorganization theories draw on a combination of cultural and systemic perspectives, arguing that community disadvantage acts, along with other processes, to inhibit the functioning of social networks of informal social control, to isolate communities from political and social resources in the larger community, and to maintain cultural adaptations that facilitate the production of crime.

Cultural and Subculture Perspectives

The majority of research on disadvantage and crime focuses on the structural organization of communities vis-à-vis poverty, inequality, unemployment, and family structure. Yet the role of culture is never far removed. Cultural transmission has been proposed as a mechanism to explain the persistence of high-crime neighborhoods despite population composition changes over time (see Shaw and McKay 1969, cited in Social Disorganization and Collective Efficacy). The values of oppositional cultures may be learned through differential association, but the likelihood of adopting such values is expected to be shaped by opportunities available to learn definitions in favor of, or opposed to, normative violations (Sutherland 1947). Others argue that strain mechanisms play a key role in developing delinquent subcultures. If lower-class youth are less likely to achieve status through middle-class institutions such as education and employment, the resulting frustration increases the likelihood of rejecting mainstream norms and forming oppositional values of toughness and disapproval of authority (Cohen 1955). Different types of delinquent subculture are related to specific adaptive modes of behavior that are influenced by the social organization of illegitimate opportunities (Cloward and Ohlin 1960). Additionally, concentrated disadvantage may constrain the situations in which norms conducive to violence surface (Wolfgang and Ferracuti 2010). Nevertheless, others have argued that cultural explanations of crime lead to unrealistic hypothesis regarding socialization processes. Rather, the weakened strength of mainstream values and social control produced by structural inequality are more tenable explanations (Kornhauser 1978). Responding to this debate, recent theorists propose that structural inequality does not generate internalized oppositional values but alternative behavioral systems produced in situations of social isolation (see Sampson and Wilson 1995, cited under Racial Invariance Hypothesis). These adaptive behaviors govern social interaction, particularly in public spaces and with respect to violence (Anderson 1999). Thus, structural and cultural factors are likely to interact with each other in complex ways to produce inequality and other social problems (Wilson 2009).

  • Anderson, Elijah. 1999. The code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York: W. W. Norton.

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    Anderson’s qualitative research presents the street code as a set of informal rules governing the use of violence in public spaces. Anderson also differentiates between “decent” and “street” families in their level of adherence to the code, but notes that a degree of code switching is widespread.

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  • Cloward, Richard A., and Lloyd E. Ohlin. 1960. Delinquency and opportunity: A theory of delinquent gangs. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

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    A further extension of Merton’s strain theory and Cohen’s delinquent subculture theory; Cloward and Ohlin explain the morphology of delinquent gangs according to the social organization of illegitimate means available. Three types of delinquent subculture are presented: criminal, conflict, and retreatist.

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  • Cohen, Albert K. 1955. Delinquent boys: The culture of the gang. Glencoe: Free Press.

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    An extension of Merton’s strain theory; Cohen explains the formation of delinquent gangs through the inability of poor youth to achieve success according to middle-class-value expectations. The inability to achieve such status leads to rejection of middle-class values and the adoption of oppositional normative systems.

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  • Kornhauser, Ruth R. 1978. Social sources of delinquency: An appraisal of analytic models. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

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    The author examines underlying assumptions and key arguments of both cultural and social control theories of delinquency. She concludes that cultural theories rely on unrealistic assumptions regarding the socialization process and that control theories hold greater explanatory power. However, normative systems may exhibit variation in the relative strength of different values.

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  • Sutherland, Edwin H. 1947. Principles of criminology. 4th ed. Chicago: J. B. Lippincott.

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    Originally published in 1924, Sutherland’s text on criminology is largely associated with his individual-level theory of differential association. Over later editions, Sutherland revised and expanded the theory to include discussion of a macro-level analogue, called “differential social organization,” to explain variations in rates of crime across a society.

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  • Wilson, William Julius. 2009. More than just race: Being black and poor in the inner city. New York: W. W. Norton.

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    Wilson returns to his discussion of The Truly Disadvantaged (Wilson 1987, cited under General Overviews) and outlines the complex mechanisms by which culture mediates and interacts with structural forces to produce racial inequality and other social problems among America’s black urban poor.

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  • Wolfgang, Marvin E., and Franco Ferracuti. 2010. The subculture of violence. London: Routledge.

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    Originally published 1967. The authors argue that violence is more prevalent among certain groups in society due to a subculture of violence. While the subculture coexists with mainstream cultural values, it provides norms and values, learned through differential association, that structure the use of violence in specific situations.

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Social Disorganization and Collective Efficacy

Shaw and McKay 1969 developed social disorganization theory to explain differences in delinquency rates across Chicago neighborhoods through two related mechanisms. First, urban growth structurally differentiates neighborhoods. Communities with low socioeconomic status, racial heterogeneity, and residential instability are less likely to have adequate social networks required for informal social control. Second, cultural transmission of delinquent values across generations explains the persistence of high-crime communities despite changes in the racial composition of residents. Ruth Kornhauser (see Cultural and Subculture Perspectives) later dismisses the cultural-transmission argument, noting that youth need not be socialized into a delinquent cultural system. Rather, weakened social controls will persist in communities characterized by structural barriers to effective social networks. Responding to such criticisms, Bursik 1988 argues for conceptual clarification of disorganization and causal clarification of the mechanisms linking structure to crime. Recent studies demonstrate that the effects of structural characteristics on neighborhood crime are mediated by local organizational participation and relationship networks (Sampson and Groves 1989). Additionally, the form and function of neighborhood social networks generate systemic social control across three interrelated levels, linking residents to each other and the larger city (Bursik and Grasmick 1993). Collective efficacy theory was developed to explain the differential ability of neighborhoods to activate informal social control (Sampson, et al. 1997). Collective efficacy represents the capacity of residents to achieve common goals through social cohesion, trust, and the willingness to act on behalf of the common good. Morenoff, et al. 2001 extends the theory by showing that local organizational and kinship networks predict collective efficacy, linking social structure to crime rates. Despite theoretical and methodological advancements, Kubrin and Weitzer 2003 describe several needed directions for future research on social disorganization. Drawing on neighborhood-effects and urban-inequality literature, Sampson and Bean 2006 also details hypotheses linking ecological processes to cultural adaptations.

  • Bursik, Robert J., Jr. 1988. Social disorganization and theories of crime and delinquency: Problems and prospects. Criminology 26:519–552.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1988.tb00854.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Bursik discusses the Shaw and McKay 1969 model of social disorganization, as well as critiques by Kornhauser 1978 (see Cultural and Subculture Perspectives) and others. He provides a conceptual framework from which later research would draw in testing and expanding the theory.

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  • Bursik, Robert J., Jr., and Harold G. Grasmick. 1993. Neighborhoods and crime: The dimensions of effective community control. New York: Lexington Books.

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    Bursik and Grasmick present social disorganization theory and other ecological perspectives in a systemic framework, delineating the multiple and interrelated levels of social control operating within and between communities.

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  • Kubrin, Charis E., and Ronald Weitzer. 2003. New directions in social disorganization theory. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 40:374–402.

    DOI: 10.1177/0022427803256238Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors examine the literature on social disorganization developed since the publication of Bursik 1988 and Sampson and Groves 1989, and argue that additional research should focus on reciprocal effects between crime and community structure, contextual effects on individual behavior, and the spatial dynamics of social ecology.

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  • Morenoff, Jeffrey D., Robert J. Sampson, and Stephen W. Raudenbush. 2001. Neighborhood inequality, collective efficacy, and the spatial dynamics of urban violence. Criminology 39:517–560.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2001.tb00932.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Morenoff and colleagues examine the relationship between community inequality, local organizational and kinship networks, and collective efficacy in a spatial dynamic framework. They find that social networks explain the level of collective efficacy in a community, which has an inverse relationship with crime rates.

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  • Sampson, Robert J., and Lydia Bean. 2006. Cultural mechanisms and killing fields: A revised theory of community-level racial inequality. In The many colors of crime: Inequalities of race, ethnicity, and crime in America. Edited by Ruth D. Peterson, Lauren J. Krivo, and John Hagan, 13–63. New York: New York Univ. Press.

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    Provides a review of the neighborhood-effects, urban-inequality, and spatial-dynamics literature in criminology. The authors highlight the importance of continued attention to issues of immigration and ethnicity, racial-spatial inequality, and a more sophisticated view of culture.

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  • Sampson, Robert J., and W. Byron Groves. 1989. Community structure and crime: Testing social-disorganization theory. American Journal of Sociology 94:774–802.

    DOI: 10.1086/229068Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors use data from the British Crime Survey to test the mechanisms hypothesized by Shaw and McKay to mediate the neighborhood- structure-and-crime relationship. They find that local organizational participation, friendship networks, and unsupervised teenage peer groups are significantly related to criminal victimization and offending in expected directions.

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  • Sampson, Robert J., Stephen W. Raudenbush, and Felton Earls. 1997. Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science 277:918–924.

    DOI: 10.1126/science.277.5328.918Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors present a theory and test of collective efficacy, representing the collective ability of residents to generate informal social control and thereby regulate the behavior of residents and visitors. Collective efficacy is found to mediate a substantial portion of the relationship among aggregate structural characteristics of communities and crime.

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  • Shaw, Clifford R., and Henry D. McKay. 1969. Juvenile delinquency in urban areas: A study of rates of delinquency in relation to differential characteristics of local communities in American cities. Rev. ed. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

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    Originally published in 1942. This is the first presentation of social disorganization theory. Shaw and McKay draw on the work of Park, Burgess, and McKenzie and other Chicago School theorists to explain the social processes responsible for neighborhood-level differentiation in juvenile delinquency rates.

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Conceptualization and Operationalization

The concept of community disadvantage has been subject to debate regarding both its substantive meaning and its proper operationalization for empirical study. Previous researchers such as Shaw and McKay (see Social Disorganization and Collective Efficacy) conceptualized disadvantage as the inability to acquire goods that indicate economic success, focusing research on poverty rates. Blau and Blau 1982 (see Absolute and Relative Deprivation) theorized that economic inequality is more relevant than poverty in explaining crime rates, instead using the Gini index of income inequality. Later research suggests that economic indicators such as poverty and inequality are both associated with a host of social problems such as male joblessness, female-headed families, high school-dropout rates, and welfare dependency that conceptually broaden the definition of disadvantage from pure economics. Therefore, theorists turned to studying the urban underclass, defined not only by poverty but also by other social dislocations. Wilson and Aponte 1985 provides an excellent overview of the urban-poverty literature, while Marks 1991 reviews the urban-underclass literature. Ricketts and Sawhill 1988 compares neighborhood poverty rates with underclass indicators, finding that while the two are strongly correlated, they are not proxies for one another. Sampson 1987 provides a test of process among indicators of disadvantage and race-specific crime rates. Sampson finds that unemployment is associated with increased family disruption and violence for blacks, and that family disruption has similar effects on white and black violence. Land, et al. 1990 demonstrates that the combination of multiple indicators into a single resource-deprivation index produces a consistent positive relationship with homicide rates over time and across units of aggregation. While the Land, et al. 1990 index includes racial composition because of its strong correlation with other indicators of disadvantage, Peterson and Krivo 2005 argues that this confounds any potential race effect with that of structural disadvantage and precludes assessment of the racial invariance hypothesis.

  • Land, Kenneth C., Patricia L. McCall, and Lawrence E. Cohen. 1990. Structural covariates of homicide rates: Are there any invariances across time and social space? American Journal of Sociology 95:922–963.

    DOI: 10.1086/229381Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors’ seminal paper illustrating that prior inconsistencies in studies of structure and crime can be resolved by reducing collinearity among explanatory variables through factor-analytic or other appropriate indexing techniques.

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  • Marks, Carole. 1991. The urban underclass. Annual Review of Sociology 17:445–466.

    DOI: 10.1146/annurev.so.17.080191.002305Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    This paper provides a review of the urban-underclass literature. Through assessment of cultural and structural research, Marks argues for the integration of explanations that recognize the variations among underclass populations, and their linkages to the larger society.

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  • Peterson, Ruth D., and Lauren J. Krivo. 2005. Macrostructural analyses of race, ethnicity, and violent crime: Recent lessons and new directions for research. Annual Review of Sociology 31:331–356.

    DOI: 10.1146/annurev.soc.31.041304.122308Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors review research on the role of ecological dissimilarity in generating race-specific differences in crime rates. Methodological issues that prevent drawing firm conclusions, such as including racial composition in the measurement of disadvantage and using racially distinct indicators of disadvantage, are discussed.

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  • Ricketts, Erol R., and Isabel V. Sawhill. 1988. Defining and measuring the underclass. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 7:316–325.

    DOI: 10.2307/3323831Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors provide an operational definition of the underclass with a social (as opposed to economic) focus. Examination of census tract data indicates that underclass neighborhoods are disproportionately those with concentrated poverty. However, the two concepts remain conceptually distinct.

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  • Sampson, Robert J. 1987. Urban black violence: The effect of male joblessness and family disruption. American Journal of Sociology 93:348–383.

    DOI: 10.1086/228748Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The author examines structural mechanisms linking the black underclass to crime. Results indicate that male unemployment is related to family disruption by reducing the pool of marriageable males. Family disruption is also predictive of violence among whites, partially refuting cultural explanations.

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  • Wilson, William Julius, and Robert Aponte. 1985. Urban poverty. Annual Review of Sociology 11:231–258.

    DOI: 10.1146/annurev.so.11.080185.001311Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    This paper provides a review of the urban-poverty literature, including a historical perspective on the development of poverty research. The authors highlight both cultural and structural literature and draw linkages between the two perspectives.

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Contemporary Empirical Research

The contemporary research relating community disadvantage to crime rates can be classified into several related yet distinct groups. Following the decline of social-ecological perspectives such as social disorganization and collective efficacy, macrostructural explanations grew in popularity during the 1970s and 1980s, developing largely out of the work of Peter Blau. Research at the beginning of this period focused predominantly on the role of absolute versus relative deprivation in explaining crime. Following the work of William Julius Wilson, Douglas S. Massey, and Nancy A. Denton, scholars focused heavily on the issue of segregation, industrial restructuring, and concentrated disadvantage. With the proposal of the racial invariance hypothesis by Sampson and Wilson, a large number of scholars examined race-specific models of crime to determine whether the structural antecedents of crime were consistent across similarly situated racial groups. While much of this research was carried out using city- and metropolitan-level data, a focus on local neighborhoods returned after theoretical and methodological advancements in social disorganization and collective efficacy theory. Furthermore, after Anderson’s Code of the Street, criminologists have returned to invoking disadvantage and cultural adaptation in explaining crime rates.

Absolute and Relative Deprivation

Much of this literature draws from Blau’s theory of macrostructural influences on group integration in society, particularly in terms of racial heterogeneity and income inequality, representing horizontal and vertical status distributions, respectively. The degree of heterogeneity and inequality in society determines the likelihood of interaction between groups along both continuums and explains the degree of interpersonal conflict and prosocial interaction. Inequality associated with ascribed status (e.g., racial/ethnic-group membership) is expected to increase levels of frustration and diffuse aggression, producing higher crime rates (Blau and Blau 1982). Economic inequality, or relative deprivation, should therefore be related to crime more so than absolute deprivation, measured by poverty, or subcultural explanations. While some researchers continue to find that racial composition is a stronger predictor of homicide than inequality (Messner 1983), others argue that model misspecification and inappropriate units of analysis generate inconsistent results (Williams 1984, Bailey 1984). Still others argue that the structure-culture explanatory debate should be tested with racially disaggregated offending data, finding that inequality has a negative relationship to homicide (Sampson 1985). Studies addressing theoretical and methodological critiques of earlier research find weaker relationships between inequality and crime than previously observed, racial composition and regional differences remain important explanatory indicators of crime, different measures of inequality produce different results, and correlations between control variables generate unstable results (Blau and Golden 1986, Golden and Messner 1987). In a landmark study, Land, et al. 1990 shows that strong correlations among economic and social indicators are explainable using two underlying constructs: resource deprivation/affluence and population structure. In reduced models, these two indicators provide consistent explanation of homicides across different units of analysis and time periods, with deprivation having the strongest effect. Further research indicates that deprivation may be more relevant in explaining white homicide, while inequality is more relevant for black homicide (Messner and Golden 1992).

  • Bailey, William C. 1984. Poverty, inequality, and city homicide rates. Criminology 22:531–550.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1984.tb00314.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The author replicates Messner’s analysis (Messner 1983) using a sample of cities, rather than metropolitan areas. Arguing that larger units of analysis mask important within-unit differences related to violence, the results indicate that poverty has the expected positive relationship to homicide rates.

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  • Blau, Judith R., and Peter M. Blau. 1982. The cost of inequality: Metropolitan structure and violent crime. American Sociological Review 47:114–129.

    DOI: 10.2307/2095046Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    A preliminary test of the ascribed-inequality hypothesis. Using data for metropolitan areas, the authors find that both intra- and interracial income inequalities are associated with higher crime rates, although different causal processes are implied. Poverty rates are not related to crime rates when inequality is accounted for.

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  • Blau, Peter M., and Reid M. Golden. 1986. Metropolitan structure and criminal violence. Sociological Quarterly 27:15–26.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1533-8525.1986.tb00246.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    A reexamination of the Blau and Blau 1982 addressing critiques that they failed to include relevant controls and account for nonlinear relationships. Findings continue to support the effect, although attenuated, of racial inequality on crime rates. Additional evidence is found for effects of racial composition and for southern effects.

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  • Golden, Reid M., and Steven F. Messner. 1987. Dimensions of racial inequality and rates of violent crime. Criminology 25:525–542.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1987.tb00809.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors attempt to identify sources of inconsistent findings in the macro-level research on inequality and crime rates. Results suggest that the operationalization of inequality is very important in shaping results. Additional evidence suggests model specification may influence results as well due to multicollinearity.

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  • Land, Kenneth C., Patricia L. McCall, and Lawrence E. Cohen. 1990. Structural covariates of homicide rates: Are there any invariances across time and social space? American Journal of Sociology 95:922–963.

    DOI: 10.1086/229381Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors’ review mixed results from the literatures on social disorganization and Merton’s anomie theory. Citing several methodological differences across studies, the authors reconcile the disparate findings and provide analyses across time periods and units of analysis that consistently implicate resource deprivation as a key determinant of violent crime rates.

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  • Messner, Steven F. 1983. Regional differences in the economic correlates of the urban homicide rate. Criminology 21:477–488.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1983.tb00275.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The author compares the independent influences of income inequality and poverty rates on homicide with a sample of southern and nonsouthern metropolitan areas. Results indicate that income inequality is not related to homicide rates, and that poverty rates are positively associated with homicide in nonsouthern locations.

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  • Messner, Steven F., and Reid M. Golden. 1992. Racial inequality and racially disaggregated homicide rates: An assessment of alternative theoretical explanations. Criminology 30:421–448.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1992.tb01111.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Drawing on Land, et al. 1990 and the inequality-and-crime literature, the authors derive four hypotheses related to intra- and interracial homicide patterns and the effects of resource deprivation and racial inequality. Results largely support social disorganization/anomie hypotheses, with some support for relative deprivation.

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  • Sampson, Robert J. 1985. Race and criminal violence: A demographically disaggregated analysis of urban homicide. Crime and Delinquency 31:47–82.

    DOI: 10.1177/0011128785031001004Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The author argues that using race, gender, and age-disaggregated crime rates provides a clearer picture of structural relationships and differentiation among competing theories. Results show income inequality is negatively related to violence, while poverty is positive related. Racial composition is not related to either white or black homicides.

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  • Williams, Kirk R. 1984. Economic sources of homicide: Reestimating the effects of poverty and inequality. American Sociological Review 49:283–289.

    DOI: 10.2307/2095577Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Williams argues that differences between the Blaus’ and Messner’s analysis with respect to poverty and inequality are due to model misspecification. He demonstrates that proper transformations to poverty rates and racial composition account for nonlinear relationships with homicide rates and illustrate the expected positive relationship of poverty to homicide.

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Segregation and Concentrated Disadvantage

Early criminologists such as Shaw and McKay (see Social Disorganization and Collective Efficacy) recognized that variation in racial and ethnic composition of local communities was related to crime rates. Research by Wilson (see General Overviews) and Massey and Denton 1993 indicate industrial restructuring, segregation, and the concentration of disadvantage play central roles in explaining the creation of the urban underclass and the production of crime. Wilson argues that urban social and economic transformations moved employment opportunities to suburban areas, facilitating the exodus of white and middle-class black families from central cities. The result for poor, predominantly black neighborhoods was social isolation and the geographic concentration of multiple forms of disadvantage and social problems. Massey and Denton 1993 argues that the primary structural force driving the concentration of black ghettos was racial residential segregation, generated through historical institutional practices, private behaviors, and the lax enforcement of antisegregation housing laws. Peterson and Krivo 1993 examines the segregation-crime relationship, finding higher black homicide rates in more segregated cities. Shihadeh and colleagues explore the relationship between different dimensions of segregation and crime, showing that geographic isolation and centralization of black populations also predict higher homicide rates (Shihadeh and Flynn 1996, Shihadeh and Maume 1997). Research assessing the mechanisms linking segregation to crime shows that racial segregation geographically concentrates multiple forms of disadvantage in central cities, and particularly so for blacks (Krivo, et al. 1998). Suburban growth can explain black, but not white, homicide rates (Shihadeh and Ousey 1996). Additionally, segregation may act as a protective factor against violence for whites (Peterson and Krivo 1999). More recent research finds racial and economic integration reduces the effects of concentrated disadvantage on violence (Lee and Ousey 2007), while multilevel studies find city-level segregation increases neighborhood crime rates across racial and ethnic groups (Krivo, et al. 2009).

  • Krivo, Lauren J., Ruth D. Peterson, and Danielle C. Kuhl. 2009. Segregation, racial structure, and neighborhood violent crime. American Journal of Sociology 114:1765–1802.

    DOI: 10.1086/597285Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Using the National Neighborhood Crime Survey, the authors find that city-level racial segregation increases homicide rates in both white and nonwhite neighborhoods. However, at all levels of city segregation whites live in more affluent neighborhoods than blacks and Latinos and experience lower levels of homicide.

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  • Krivo, Lauren J., Ruth D. Peterson, Helen Rizzo, and John R. Reynolds. 1998. Race, segregation, and the concentration of disadvantage: 1980–1990. Social Problems 45:61–80.

    DOI: 10.1525/sp.1998.45.1.03x0157aSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors examine the role of racial residential segregation in concentrating disadvantage for blacks and whites in central cities. They find increases in concentrations of poverty and female-headed families, but not joblessness. Concentrated disadvantage is greater for blacks than whites and is partially explained by segregation of blacks from whites.

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  • Lee, Matthew R., and Graham C. Ousey. 2007. Counterbalancing disadvantage? Residential integration and urban black homicide. Social Problems 54:240–262.

    DOI: 10.1525/sp.2007.54.2.240Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors examine the effect of integration with different racial and class groups on black homicide rates. They find that higher exposure of disadvantaged blacks to more affluent nonblacks significantly reduces black homicide rates.

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  • Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. 1993. American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.

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    Massey and Denton’s seminal publication on the formation of the urban underclass through racial residential-segregation practices.

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  • Peterson, Ruth D., and Lauren J. Krivo. 1993. Racial segregation and black urban homicide. Social Forces 71:1001–1026.

    DOI: 10.2307/2580128Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Drawing on the strain, inequality, and crime literature, the authors argue that racial segregation is an important source of black-white inequality. For central cities, segregation has a positive effect on black homicide victimization, particularly acquaintance and stranger homicides. Segregation has a greater effect than black or black-white income inequality.

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  • Peterson, Ruth D., and Lauren J. Krivo. 1999. Racial segregation, the concentration of disadvantage, and black and white homicide victimization. Sociological Forum 14:465–493.

    DOI: 10.1023/A:1021451703612Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors hypothesize that racial segregation will exacerbate black homicide rates by concentrating disadvantage, while simultaneously buffering whites from increases in homicide. Results support the partial mediation of the segregation–black homicide relationship by concentrated disadvantage.

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  • Shihadeh, Edward S., and Nicole Flynn. 1996. Segregation and crime: The effect of black social isolation on the rates of black urban violence. Social Forces 74:1325–1352.

    DOI: 10.2307/2580353Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors find that the geographic isolation of blacks from whites is positively related to black homicide and robbery rates in large US cities. Furthermore, about 25 percent of the effect of geographic isolation is mediated by indicators of economics and culture in urban black communities.

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  • Shihadeh, Edward S., and Michael O. Maume. 1997. Segregation and crime: The relationship between black centralization and urban black homicide. Homicide Studies 1:254–280.

    DOI: 10.1177/1088767997001003004Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Examining black homicide arrest rates in large cities, the authors find rates are highest when blacks are segregated closer to the geographic center of the city. Furthermore, the effect of black centralization on homicide is mediated by a lack of entry-level jobs and increases in youth dropping out of high school.

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  • Shihadeh, Edward S., and Graham C. Ousey. 1996. Metropolitan expansion and black social dislocation: The link between suburbanization and center-city crime. Social Forces 75:649–666.

    DOI: 10.2307/2580417Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Examines the extent to which metropolitan suburbanization is associated with race-specific crime rates in central cities. Results show that suburbanization has little association with white crime rates, but it increases black crime rates by concentrating structural disadvantage and other social problems.

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Racial Invariance Hypothesis

Early discourse on the relationship between disadvantage, race, and crime was couched in the structure-culture debate and examined total crime rates. Yet some argued that studying white and black crime rates separately would improve our understanding of criminogenic processes. Sampson and Wilson 1995 addresses the issue directly, arguing that substantial differences in white and black crime rates are the byproduct of dramatically different community contexts in which both groups reside. Specifically, higher levels of community disadvantage, disorganization, and social isolation from mainstream and middle-class institutions produce higher rates of crime in black neighborhoods relative to white ones. Were whites and blacks to live in comparable ecological contexts, Sampson and Wilson 1995 hypothesizes both groups would exhibit comparable crime rates. This thesis, known as the racial invariance hypothesis, inspired substantial testing efforts. Researchers attempting to compare similarly situated neighborhoods find little overlap in the distribution of disadvantage between groups (McNulty 2001). However, among comparable neighborhoods, the relationship between disadvantage and crime is similar for both homicide (Krivo and Peterson 1996) and intimate partner assault (Wooldredge and Thistlethwaite 2003). Others find that once differences in neighborhood disadvantage are controlled, the influence of racial composition is not significant across several crime types (Shihadeh and Shrum 2004). Studies examining city-level differences have produced mixed findings. Some find the disadvantage-homicide relationship is similar among affluent whites and blacks, yet higher average levels of disadvantage elevate black homicide rates (Krivo and Peterson 2000). Additionally, disadvantage spatially concentrates poverty, increasing crime similarly for whites and blacks (Lee 2000). Others find differential effects of disadvantage on white, black, and Latino crime (Philipps 2002). Ousey 1999 argues that methodological differences may produce such inconsistencies, finding that an index of economic deprivation is related to both white and black rates of violence, yet the magnitude of the effect differs across groups.

  • Krivo, Lauren J., and Ruth D. Peterson. 1996. Extremely disadvantaged neighborhoods and urban crime. Social Forces 75:619–650.

    DOI: 10.2307/2580416Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors test the racial invariance hypothesis using census tract data from Columbus, Ohio. Results indicate that extremely disadvantaged communities, using a variety of indicators, have higher levels of violence than highly disadvantaged communities. The findings are consistent across both white and black communities.

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  • Krivo, Lauren J., and Ruth D. Peterson. 2000. The structural context of homicide: Accounting for racial differences in process. American Sociological Review 65:547–559.

    DOI: 10.2307/2657382Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors compare the effects of concentrated disadvantage on white and black homicide rates. For cities with comparable levels of black and white disadvantage, community context has a consistent relationship across races. Disadvantage interacts with homeownership to influence black homicide rates.

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  • Lee, Matthew R. 2000. Concentrated poverty, race, and homicide. Sociological Quarterly 41:189–206.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1533-8525.2000.tb00091.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The author tests the hypotheses that the spatial concentration of poverty increases violent crime rates and that the effects are consistent for whites and blacks across cities. Results confirm that group-disadvantage effects on homicide are mediated by spatially concentrated poverty, and the effects are similar for whites and blacks.

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  • McNulty, Thomas L. 2001. Assessing the race-violence relationship at the macro level: The assumption of racial invariance and the problem of restricted distributions. Criminology 39:467–490.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2001.tb00930.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Using block group data for Atlanta, Georgia, McNulty introduces the concept of restricted distributions. The effects of disadvantage are similar for black and white communities with low disadvantage, but the effect diminishes greatly for black communities with high levels of disadvantage.

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  • Ousey, Graham C. 1999. Homicide, structural factors, and the racial invariance assumption. Criminology 37:405–426.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1999.tb00491.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The author assesses the racial-invariance literature, and notes several methodological issues that preclude making clear conclusions. Examination of race-specific homicide rates using seemingly unrelated regression models and tests for differences in coefficients show economic deprivation is predictive for blacks and whites. However, the magnitude of effect differs across races.

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  • Phillips, Julie A. 2002. White, black, and Latino homicide rates: Why the difference? Social Problems 49:349–373.

    DOI: 10.1525/sp.2002.49.3.349Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Across a sample of large US cities, Phillips finds that income inequality and male unemployment rates are positively related to black homicide but not to white or Latino homicide rates. The author also estimates the proportion of the difference in homicides between groups explained by structural factors.

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  • Sampson, Robert J., and William Julius Wilson. 1995. Toward a theory of race, crime, and urban inequality. In Crime and inequality. Edited by John Hagan and Ruth D. Peterson, 37–54. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.

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    The authors present their racial invariance hypothesis, integrating structural and cultural explanations in an ecological theoretical paradigm to explain racial differences in crime. Macro-level structural and political forces concentrate disadvantage in urban black communities, thereby socially isolating residents from mainstream institutions and facilitating the transmission of cultural adaptations conducive to crime.

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  • Shihadeh, Edward S., and Wesley Shrum. 2004. Serious crime in urban neighborhoods: Is there a race effect? Sociological Spectrum 24:507–533.

    DOI: 10.1080/02732170490459502Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors examine block-group data for Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They find that neighborhood economic deprivation accounts entirely for the relationship between racial composition and crime rates.

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  • Wooldredge, John, and Amy Thistlethwaite. 2003. Neighborhood structure and race-specific rates of intimate assault. Criminology 41:393–422.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2003.tb00992.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors examine neighborhood effects on rates of intimate partner assaults for census tracts in Hamilton County, Ohio. Results show that economic disadvantage has nearly identical effects on assault rates for both white and black males.

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Integrating Structural and Cultural Explanations

Contemporary studies of disadvantage and crime have generally focused on structural explanations of crime. Recently theorists have returned to the concept of culture, predominantly as a mediating factor between structural disadvantage and crime. Warner 2003 explicitly tests Kornhauser’s thesis (see Cultural and Subculture Perspectives), finding that disadvantaged neighborhoods have weakened cultural strength and lower levels of informal social control. Sampson and Bartusch 1998 demonstrates that community context shapes tolerance for deviance and legal cynicism that cannot be explained by individual factors, including race. Sampson and Wilson 1995 (see Racial Invariance Hypothesis) highlights the role of cultural adaptations caused by the unique constraints and opportunities of social isolation in urban communities with high levels of concentrated disadvantage. In his qualitative research Elijah Anderson (Anderson 1999) provides evidence for the existence of such adaptations through the code of the street: informal rules governing behavior in public spaces and particularly the use of violence. Kubrin and Weitzer 2003 provides evidence that cultural retaliatory homicide is more common in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Matsueda, et al. 2006 tests Anderson’s hypothesis using survey data from Seattle neighborhoods, estimating models that account for the fact that respondents may over- or underestimate the presence of street codes, finding that street codes are more prevalent in disadvantaged and predominantly black communities. Stewart, et al. 2002 examines the role of neighborhood affluence, parental and peer violence, and the code of the street, finding that adoption of street codes increases adolescent violence. Furthermore, Stewart and Simons 2006 finds that the effects of neighborhood and family factors on violence operate through the adoption of street codes. Sampson and Bean 2006 expands on the racial invariance hypothesis of Sampson and Wilson to include aspects of culture. Linking structural characteristics with cultural definitions and individual violence, Brezina, et al. 2004 also finds that perceptions of poor employment opportunities are related to violent behavior and peer aggression, which in turn increases acceptance of street-code–related beliefs and later violence.

  • Anderson, Elijah. 1999. The code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York: W. W. Norton.

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    Anderson examines the normative organization of poor inner-city neighborhoods. He finds that profound alienation from mainstream society and competition for scarce resources, such as respect, are strongly implicated in a cultural code that organizes the use of violence in public spaces.

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  • Brezina, Timothy, Robert Agnew, Francis T. Cullen, and John Paul Wright. 2004. The code of the street: A quantitative assessment of Elijah Anderson’s subculture of violence thesis and its contribution to youth violence research. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 2:303–328.

    DOI: 10.1177/1541204004267780Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors review the quantitative literature on the code of the street and further elaborate hypotheses presented by Anderson with respect to the indirect effects of perceived employment opportunities and victimization on violence through code-related beliefs.

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  • Kubrin, Charis E., and Ronald Weitzer. 2003. Retaliatory homicide: Concentrated disadvantage and neighborhood culture. Social Problems 50:157–180.

    DOI: 10.1525/sp.2003.50.2.157Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors use a mixed-methods approach, presenting statistical models of homicide rates in St. Louis, Missouri, and qualitative analysis of homicide narratives to examine the roles of disadvantage and culture on retaliatory homicides.

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  • Matsueda, Ross L., Kevin Drakulich, and Charis E. Kubrin. 2006. Race and neighborhood codes of violence. In The many colors of crime: Inequalities of race, ethnicity, and crime in America. Edited by Ruth D. Peterson, Lauren J. Krivo, and John Hagan, 334–356. New York: New York Univ. Press.

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    The authors use survey data from Seattle residents to measure the strength of neighborhood street codes. The results show that street codes vary by levels of poverty, racial composition, and residential stability.

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  • Sampson, Robert J., and Dawn Jeglum Bartusch. 1998. Legal cynicism and (subcultural?) tolerance of deviance: The neighborhood context of racial differences. Law and Society Review 32:777–804.

    DOI: 10.2307/827739Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors examine individual and neighborhood factors related to the tolerance of deviance, legal cynicism, and satisfaction with police. Minority respondents were less tolerant of deviance than whites. Yet in disadvantaged communities there was greater tolerance of deviance, cynicism toward the legal system, and dissatisfaction with police.

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  • Sampson, Robert J., and Lydia Bean. 2006. Cultural mechanisms and killing fields: A revised theory of community-level racial inequality. In The many colors of crime: Inequalities of race, ethnicity, and crime in America. Edited by Ruth D. Peterson, Lauren J. Krivo, and John Hagan, 13–63. New York: New York Univ. Press.

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    The authors review the empirical research on the racial invariance hypothesis and suggest new directions for future research. They critique the traditional “culture as values” perspective and suggest an improved paradigm through the “culture in action” perspective.

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  • Stewart, Eric A., Ronald L. Simons, and Rand D. Conger. 2002. Assessing neighborhood and social psychological influences on childhood violence in an African-American sample. Criminology 40:801–830.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2002.tb00974.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors examine the roles of neighborhood affluence and violence, as well as individual attributes such as adopting the street code, parental and peer violence, and family socioeconomic status. Results indicate that community affluence reduces adolescent violence, while adopting the street code and having violent parents and peers increases violence.

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  • Stewart, Eric A., and Ronald L. Simons. 2006. Structure and culture in African-American adolescent violence: A partial test of the “code of the street” thesis. Justice Quarterly 23:1–33.

    DOI: 10.1080/07418820600552378Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors test the hypothesis in Anderson 1999 hypothesis that neighborhood disadvantage/affluence, discrimination, and living in a “street” family explain youth adopting the street code. Adopting the street code in turn mediated the effects of neighborhood and family contexts and discrimination in explaining violence.

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  • Warner, Barbara. 2003. The role of attenuated culture in social disorganization theory. Criminology 41:73–98.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2003.tb00982.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Warner tests the Kornhauser 1978 cultural attenuation hypothesis. Findings provide tentative support for the weakened strength of conventional values and informal social control in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

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Social Networks and Institutional Resources

Most scholars acknowledge that the relationship between community disadvantage and crime is not direct. Rather, a variety of intervening theoretical mechanisms have been proposed as mediating factors. These include social-relationship networks, cohesion, and collective efficacy; local social institutions and community organizations; as well as broader political structures and neighborhood access to external political resources. According to the social disorganization and collective efficacy frameworks, proper functioning of each of these mechanisms is generally expected to enhance the ability of community residents to maintain social control and achieve common neighborhood goals. Warner and Rountree 1997 examines the relationship between social ties and crime in Seattle, Washington, neighborhoods, finding only a weak connection with crime that varies by racial composition of community. Noting that the frequency of interaction is important for social cohesion, Bellair 1997 examines the same issue across three cities, finding that more frequent social interaction reduces crime and mediates the influence of neighborhood disadvantage. In a classic test of social disorganization, Sampson and Groves 1989 finds that local friendship networks reduce victimization. Nieuwbeerta, et al. 2008 also finds that local social cohesion partially mediates the community disadvantage–homicide relationship in the Netherlands. Peterson, et al. 2000 examines neighborhood social institutions, finding that bars and recreational centers interact with extreme disadvantage to, increase and reduce violent crime, respectively. With respect to political institutions, Bursik 1989 demonstrates how the inability of residents to organize effectively may result in political decisions to place detrimental institutions such as public housing projects within a neighborhood. Vélez 2001 demonstrates that positive relationships between a community and external sources of social control may reduce crime, especially in disadvantaged communities. Stucky 2003 also finds an interaction effect such that some city-level political structures reduce the effects of disadvantage on crime by providing greater access to citywide resources. Finally, Villarreal 2002 illustrates how communities with local patronage networks in Mexico experienced a greater increase in violence when electoral competition was increased.

  • Bellair, Paul E. 1997. Social interaction and community crime: Examining the importance of neighborhood networks. Criminology 35:677–704.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1997.tb01235.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Bellair examines the mediating effects of residential social interaction, defined as getting together with one’s neighbors, between neighborhood structure and crime rates. Results indicate that socioeconomic status is predictive of social interaction, which in turn is negatively related to crime rates.

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  • Bursik, Robert J., Jr. 1989. Political decision-making and ecological models of delinquency: Conflict and consensus. In Theoretical integration in the study of deviance and crime: Problems and prospects. Edited by Steven F. Messner, Marvin D. Krohn, and Allen E. Liska, 105–118. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

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    Drawing on systemic social disorganization theory and political-capital perspectives, Bursik discusses the interaction between community organization and political decisions, such as where to locate public housing in the city of Chicago.

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  • Nieuwbeerta, Paul, Patricia L. McCall, Henk Elffers, and Karin Wittebrood. 2008. Neighborhood characteristics and individual homicide risks: Effects of social cohesion, confidence in police, and socioeconomic disadvantage. Homicide Studies 12:90–116.

    DOI: 10.1177/1088767907310913Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors examine neighborhood factors related to homicide probabilities in the Netherlands. Results indicate that socioeconomic disadvantage is positively related to neighborhood homicide risk and may be mediated partially by local social cohesion.

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  • Peterson, Ruth D., Lauren J. Krivo, and Mark A. Harris. 2000. Disadvantage and neighborhood violent crime: Do local institutions matter? Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 37:31–63.

    DOI: 10.1177/0022427800037001002Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    This research examines the role of local institutions such as bars and recreational centers in facilitating or inhibiting crime in Columbus, Ohio, neighborhoods. Both bars and recreation centers are found to interact with extreme disadvantage to exacerbate and attenuate violent crime, respectively.

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  • Sampson, Robert J., and W. Byron Groves. 1989. Community structure and crime: Testing social-disorganization theory. American Journal of Sociology 94:774–802.

    DOI: 10.1086/229068Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The authors present results implicating local friendship networks, organizational participation, and unsupervised peer groups in the explanation of criminal victimization and offending. Importantly, Sampson and Groves show that these measures of social networks and local institutions mediate significant portions of the association between community structure and crime.

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  • Stucky, Thomas D. 2003. Local politics and violent crime in U.S. cities. Criminology 41:1101–1136.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2003.tb01015.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    The author examines how local political structures directly and indirectly influence violent crime rates. Findings show that local political structures influence crime directly, but also interact to reduce the influence of resource deprivation on crime rates.

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  • Vélez, María B. 2001. The role of public social control in urban neighborhoods: A multilevel analysis of victimization risk. Criminology 39:837–864.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2001.tb00942.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Vélez uses a systemic social disorganization model to examine the role of public social control in reducing victimization across neighborhoods. While public social control has a greater direct effect on personal victimization, public control interacts to reduce household and personal victimization in more disadvantaged communities.

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  • Villarreal, Andrés. 2002. Political competition and violence in Mexico: Hierarchical social control in local patronage structures. American Sociological Review 67:477–498.

    DOI: 10.2307/3088942Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    A study of political structures and violence in Mexico. Villarreal finds that where local patronage networks are strong, increases in electoral competition are related to higher levels of homicide.

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  • Warner, Barbara, and Pamela Wilcox Rountree. 1997. Local social ties in a community and crime model: Questioning the systemic nature of informal social control. Social Problems 44:523–539.

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    The authors examine the role of neighborhood social ties in mediating the effects of structural factors on crime rates. Only the effect of residential stability was mediated by social ties. The effect of social ties on crime was present in white, but not minority, communities.

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LAST MODIFIED: 03/02/2011

DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195396607-0074

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