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The Role of Neighbourhoods in Shaping Crime and Perceptions of Crime

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Book cover Neighbourhood Effects or Neighbourhood Based Problems?

Abstract

Neighbourhood context plays an important role in the development of the perceptions of crime. To understand how neighbourhood contexts can influence crime, the authors present four major theories through which neighbourhood content is mediated to individual perceptions: social disorganisation, subcultural diversity, low level disorder and, defensible space. The authors focus on the need to improve the estimation of neighbourhood effects with regard to individual perceptions of crime. Reviewing current literature, they highlight a common set of neighbourhood effects problems including the issue of relating multiple levels in a single model, the problem of selection bias, and the identification of adequate neighbourhood units for analysis. In the analysis, UK administrative geography is adopted as a means to represent the neighbourhood, and a multilevel model is fitted. The final part of the chapter deals with the policies that have been pursued to ameliorate neighbourhood problems associated with crime. The focus of the policy discussion is UK centred, and the development of neighbourhood policing teams is discussed. In conclusion, the authors highlight the complexity that remains in developing understanding of neighbourhood perceptions of crime. This is largely a result of the multiple influencing factors that are related to individual perceptions of crime but rarely included explicitly in the models that seek to report the links between people and the places that they live.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although even in experimental conditions where such moves are observed and the process is randomised, there is no guarantee that the effects noted are due to the change in setting. Sampson et al. (2002, p.466) state that ‘[t]he clear tendency has been to interpret MTO results in terms of the effects of changing [from] concentrated poverty, but…such an assertion is arbitrary – any number of changes in social processes associated with poverty may account for the result’.

  2. 2.

    Analyses in Brunton-Smith and Jackson (2012) were restricted to urban neighbourhoods, however here we extend the focus to also incorporate data on rural locations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7X, UK

    Ian Brunton-Smith

  2. Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 9DA, UK

    Alex Sutherland

  3. Department of Methodology, The London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK

    Jonathan Jackson

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  1. Ian Brunton-Smith
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  2. Alex Sutherland
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  3. Jonathan Jackson
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Correspondence to Ian Brunton-Smith .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 1SS, United Kingdom

    David Manley

  2. , OTB Research Inst for the Built Environm, Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 9, Delft, 2628 BX, Netherlands

    Maarten van Ham

  3. , Urban Studies, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8RS, United Kingdom

    Nick Bailey

  4. , The Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and S, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom

    Ludi Simpson

  5. , Centre for Housing Research, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, KY16 9AL, Fife, United Kingdom

    Duncan Maclennan

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Brunton-Smith, I., Sutherland, A., Jackson, J. (2013). The Role of Neighbourhoods in Shaping Crime and Perceptions of Crime. In: Manley, D., van Ham, M., Bailey, N., Simpson, L., Maclennan, D. (eds) Neighbourhood Effects or Neighbourhood Based Problems?. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6695-2_4

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