"Urban Poverty and Neighborhood Effects on Crime: Incorporating Spatial and Network Perspectives".
Research on neighborhoods and crime is on a remarkable growth trajectory. In this article, we survey important recent developments in the scholarship on neighborhood effects and the spatial stratification of poverty and urban crime. We advance the case that, in understanding the impact of neighborhoods and poverty on crime, sociological and criminological research would benefit from expanding the analytical focus from residential neighborhoods to the network of neighborhoods individuals are exposed to during their daily routine activities. This perspective is supported by reemerging scholarship on activity spaces and macro-level research on inter-neighborhood connections. We highlight work indicating that non-residential contexts add variation in criminogenic exposure, which in turn influence offending behavior and victimization risk. Also, we draw on recent insights from research on gang violence, social and institutional connections, and spatial mismatch, and call for advancements in the scholarship on urban poverty that investigates the salience of inter-neighborhood connections in evaluating the spatial stratification of criminogenic risk for individuals and communities.
"Reexamining Neighborhood Effects on Youth's Risky Behavior and Delinquency in the Moving to Opportunity Experiment."
The scholarship on neighborhood effects has predominantly focused on the immediate neighborhood of residence and has rarely examined the implications of socioeconomic inequality on youth delinquency and risky behavior. However, without more refined conceptualizations of space and spatial mechanisms that account for inequality we risk misunderstanding the local dynamics that shape youth behavior. Drawing on theoretical insights from urban sociology and criminology, this article underscores the importance of the spatial dimensions of socioeconomic inequality and examines how the wider spatial context of the immediate neighborhood of residence matters for adolescent boys and girls. Analyses of low-income youth in five U.S. cities show that decreasing spatial isolation reduces the risky behavior of girls but increases that of boys. However, it is not spatial isolation or relative deprivation, but rather exposure to the spatially conditioned inequality that is particularly detrimental for boys. Measures of spatial context based on supplementary data sets are constructed and matched to the residential history of youth to explore some of the mechanisms through which neighborhoods and inequality may affect their delinquency.
"Housing, Neighborhoods, and Health Disparities" Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Human Capital.
Many aspects of internal housing conditions are known to affect health. For instance, heating, ventilation, mold and lead are linked to cardiovascular health, excess mortality, asthma, disability, intellectual functioning, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and delinquent behavior. We are also learning more and more about the health relevance of various characteristics of the physical environment surrounding one’s residence. For example noise, spatial proximity to vegetation, to grocery shops and to highways, and other sources of air pollution are linked to cardiovascular, mental health, obesity, asthma and allergic effects. Limited but important evidence also exists on the health implications of the socio-spatial context of housing. For instance, fear of crime, crowding, neighborhood disadvantage, social exclusion, and residents’ social exchange are linked to cardiovascular and mental health, obesity, diabetes and low birth weight. In my dissertation work and related projects, I ask questions about the spatial context of neighborhood effects to investigate how the urban geography of inequality and cumulative spatial disadvantage shape the health and well-being of the inner-city poor. I analyze residential mobility data from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Baltimore, and Chicago together with data from Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, and a large collection of data based on Census and other administrative records over several years. The findings indicate, first, that spatial context measures such as proximity to the nearest ghetto decrease mental health and increase the prevalence of obesity and modify the effects of living in low-poverty immediate neighborhoods. Second, spatial inequality contributes in important ways to explaining gender differences in youth psychological distress, depression symptoms, and involvement in risky and delinquent behavior. Third, spatial trajectories of different racial and ethnic groups exhibit important disparities that align with existing urban segregation patterns. Moreover, spatial proximity and similarity between any two neighborhoods on multiple structural dimensions significantly constrain residential mobility patterns, which indicates the importance of the general network context within which neighborhoods are embedded that incorporates, but transcends, spatial interdependencies.
"Spatial Heterogeneity in the Effects of Immigration and Diversity on Neighborhood Homicide Rates" (with Robert J. Sampson). 2009. Homicide Studies. 13(3): 242-260.
This article examines the connection of immigration and diversity to homicide by advancing a recently developed approach to modeling spatial dynamics—geographically weighted regression (GWR). In contrast to traditional global averaging, we argue on substantive grounds that neighborhood characteristics vary in their effects across neighborhood space, a process of “spatial heterogeneity.” Much like treatment-effect heterogeneity and distinct from spatial spillover, our analysis finds considerable evidence that neighborhood characteristics in Chicago vary significantly in predicting homicide, in some cases showing countervailing effects depending on spatial location. In general, however, immigrant concentration is either unrelated or inversely related to homicide, whereas language diversity is consistently linked to lower homicide. The results shed new light on the immigration-homicide nexus and suggest the pitfalls of global averaging models that hide the reality of a highly diversified and spatially stratified metropolis.
"Neighborhood Social Capital as Differential Social Organization: Resident and Leadership Dimensions" (with Robert J. Sampson). 2009. American Behavioral Scientist. 52(11):1579-1605.
This article treats social capital as a multidimensional phenomenon along which neighborhoods are differentially organized. The authors assess this notion by linking two original surveys carried out in Chicago based on community residents (N = 8,782) and positional leaders (N = 2,822) representing six organizational dimensions. These data are used to examine both the dimensionality and structural predictors of neighborhood social organization. Results show that the social capital of Chicago communities encapsulates four distinct dimensions at the residential level and two at the leadership level. Moreover, dimensions of leadership-based social capital are for the most part inversely related to resident-based social capital and differentially predicted by concentrated disadvantage, residential stability, and racial/ethnic diversity. Based on multidimensional scaling and clustering of the communities, the authors derive a conceptual typology highlighted by four distinct groups—Cosmopolitan Efficacy, Urban Villages, Institutional Alienation, and Conduct Norms. The authors discuss implications and suggest new directions for exploration of community differentiation.
"Neighborhood Networks and Processes of Trust" (with Robert J. Sampson). 2009. Pp. 182-216 in Whom Can We Trust? How Groups, Networks, and Institutions Make Trust Possible edited by Karen Cook, Russell Hardin, and Margaret Levi. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
This chapter examines community and social network predictors of trust. Specifically, we investigate variations in trust among residents, leaders, and institutions across time and community contexts. We capitalize on a two-wave panel study of more than 1000 positional leaders sampled from six institutional domains -- law, politics, business, community organizations, education, and religion -- across thirty Chicago communities. Among other innovations, this study developed an instrument assessing working trust in relationships defined by networks of action among community leaders, along with an assessment of the extent to which local residents trust their leaders and institutions. In addition, in two independent studies, residents of the same communities, the trust and shared expectations of local residents in each other were also assessed. We combine theses sources of data to contextualize the conditions under which trust emerges. As a result, we focus on the simple idea that trust is endogenous and consists of multiple dimensions that vary by neighborhood and institutional level contexts. We specifically examine the measurement properties of between-neighborhood variations in trust, with a focus on how different measures hang together (or not) across communities. Moreover, we analyze the structural predictors of trust with a focus on long-term processes that appear to generate mistrust traps. We find first, that low levels of trust and collective efficacy beget cycles of further mistrust and ineffective institutional response. Neighborhoods remain remarkably stable in their relative social standing despite the inflow and outflow of residents. Second, levels of poverty from the 1970s predict multiple dimensions of mistrust thirty years later. Decreases in poverty predict decreases in mistrust net of changes in racial diversity and residential stability. Third, racial diversity is either positively correlated with trust or unrelated to trust once multivariate controls are introduced. Fourth, spatial proximity to mistrust traps is related to lower levels of trust in the focal neighborhoods, highlighting remarkable, yet little documented contextual characteristic of neighborhood trust- its spillover across space and time. Finally, structural networks among community leaders predict working trust among leaders but not general trust.
"Prosecutorial Misconduct in Serious Cases: Theory and Design of a Laboratory Experiment" (with J. W. Lucasand M. J. Lovaglia). 2007. Pp. 119-136 in Experiments in Criminology and Law. A Research Revolution, edited by Christine Horne and Michael J. Lovaglia. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
We developed a theory with the potential to explain why prosecutorial misconduct becomes more likely as crimes become more severe. According to theory, the greater personal importance of attaining a conviction for prosecutors combines with a stronger perception of the guilt of defendants in severe cases, encouraging greater misconduct in the prosecution of severe crimes. Results of a controlled laboratory experiment support the propositions of that theory. We found that participants randomly assigned to prosecute a contrived case of murder attached greater personal importance to attaining a conviction, were more likely to believe defendants were guilty, and were more likely to engage in misconduct than participants randomly assigned to prosecute an assault. The findings provide support for the hypothesis that presumptions of guilt and actions of misconduct will be greater for more serious crimes. This study suggests the need for further research using different methods in order to determine how aspects of the legal system aggravate or mitigate the processes found here. While determining the extent to which severity of crime affects misconduct in natural settings is difficult, support for our theory provides a compelling reason to investigate misconduct among working prosecutors of serious crimes.
"Misconduct in the Prosecution of Severe Crimes: Theory and Experimental Test." (with Jeffrey W. Lucas and Michael J. Lovaglia). 2006. Social Psychology Quarterly, 69(1):97-107.
Prosecutorial misconduct involves the intentional use of illegal or improper methods for attaining convictions against defendants in criminal trials. Previous research documented extensive errors in the prosecution of severe crimes. A theory formulated to explain this phenomenon proposes that in serious cases, increased pressure to convict encourages misconduct; further, serious cases increase perceptions of the suspect’s guilt, which facilitate justification of the misconduct. A controlled laboratory experiment allows tests of theoretically derived predictions while controlling for extraneous factors common in naturally occurring settings. University undergraduate participants were assigned randomly to prosecute a contrived case of murder or assault; otherwise the two cases were identical. Results showed that participants improperly withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense more often in the murder case than in the assault case. Further, participants prosecuting the murder case expressed a stronger belief in the defendant’s guilt than did participants in the assault case. Implications for future research in naturally occurring settings are discussed.
"The Changing Nature of Job Stress: Risk and Resources." (with Mark Tausig, Rudy Fenwick, Steven L. Sauter, Lawrence Murphy). 2004. Research in Occupational Stress and Well Being 4:93-126.
The nature of work has changed in the past 30 years but we do not know what these changes have meant for worker job stress. In this chapter we compare data from three surveys of the quality of work life from 1972 to 2002. At the most general level, work today is less stressful than it was in 1972. Workers report fewer job demands, more decision latitude, less job strain, more job security and greater access to job resources and job support. However, these changes have not affected all workers equally. Women, those with less education, non self-employed workers, blue collar workers and workers in manufacturing industries showed the greatest decreases in job stress although levels of job stress remain higher than for comparison groups (men, college educated, white collar, service workers). Changes were not always linear across time suggesting that some aspects of job strain are sensitive to economic cycles.
