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History of Geographic Criminology Part II: Twentieth Century

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Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice

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After the turn of the century, the locus of geographic research on crime moved to the United States, and especially to the city of Chicago. A group of American sociologists, among them Robert Park, William Thomas, Louis Wirth, Ernest Burgess, Clifford Shaw, and Henry McKay, took a leadership role in the development of the criminology of place, in contrast to the statisticians, criminal lawyers, or psychiatrists who dominated criminology more generally in Europe (see entry on the History of Geographic Criminology Part I: Nineteenth Century). New theoretical concepts were introduced (notably social disorganization) and innovative methods and techniques to study empirically the distribution of crime in cities. In the 1950s, methodological critiques and developments in other areas of criminology diminished the research attention to geographic criminology. In the 1980s, young scholars reemerged the study of spatial issues studying the dynamics of neighborhoods, elaborating the...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Gerben Bruinsma

  2. VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Gerben Bruinsma

  3. Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    David Weisburd

  4. Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel

    David Weisburd

Authors
  1. Gerben Bruinsma
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  2. David Weisburd
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Correspondence to Gerben Bruinsma .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Gerben Bruinsma

  2. VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Gerben Bruinsma

  3. Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    David Weisburd

  4. Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel

    David Weisburd

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Bruinsma, G., Weisburd, D. (2014). History of Geographic Criminology Part II: Twentieth Century. In: Bruinsma, G., Weisburd, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_650

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_650

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