Social and Physical Neighbourhood Effects and Crime: Bringing Domains Together Through Collective Efficacy Theory

Abstract

Criminologists and social scientists have long sought to explain why crime rates vary across urban landscapes. By dissecting the city into neighbourhood units, consideration has been given to the comparable features of settings under study which may help to explain why measured crime is higher in certain areas as compared to others. Some, from the socio-spatial perspective, argue that the socio-demographic makeup of a neighbourhood influences the social processes within it relevant to the disruption of crime. Others posit that physical features of neighbourhood settings, which include its layout, architectural design, and more specific measures to ‘target harden’ buildings against property crimes, can exhibit a deterrent effect. Whilst these explanations profess discrete empirical support, little has been done to consider how these influences may come to explain neighbourhood crime rates concomitantly. In this article, I seek to develop a new socio-physical model in an attempt to integrate and appraise aspects of these domains and their purported ability to explain variations in recorded crime. To achieve this, I use Collective Efficacy theory as a central organising concept which can aid researchers in interrogating current findings. I conclude that the dichotomy between how neighbourhood settings can be both defended, and be defensible, can be addressed by considering the relevance of social cohesion in activating resident social control.

Can Professional Interventions Contribute to an Escalation in Cases of Youth Violence? Considering the Impact of the Shift from Informal to Formal Youth Support on an Inner City Housing Estate

“…The existing neighbourhood dynamics of poverty and low levels of resident interaction had already heightened the risk of the young being involved in criminal behaviour (Kim et al, 2016; McAra and McVie, 2016; Sampson and Groves, 1989). However, the actions of the young people were also influenced by the local context (Cole, 2019; Sampson, 2013; Schnell et al, 2017).…”

“…Although neighbourhoods are fashioned by wider socio-economic factors, they are also shaped by their specific context (Cole, 2019; Sampson, 2013; Schnell et al, 2017). Sampson and Groves (1989) considered localised contexts to explain how friendship and kinship networks built collective efficacy, a sense of trust and mutual expectations, resulting in informal guardianship and residents acting to constrain deviant behaviour (Bellair, 2006a; Maimon and Browning, 2010; Oberwittler, 2004; Sampson and Groves, 1989; Wickes et al, 2013).…”

Predicting Spatial Crime Occurrences through an Efficient Ensemble-Learning Model

“…One important extension of social disorganization theory was the concept of collective efficacy [18], which refers to residents' ability to come together to achieve a shared desire for a safe neighborhood [20]. Collective efficacy combines social cohesion, defined as trust and sense of community between neighbors, with informal social control, which refers to residents' ability to regulate community disorder.…”

Spatial Heterogeneity Modeling of the Neighbourhood Effects and Socio-economic Factors on Burglary Crimes in Nigeria

“…Recent research has highlighted the importance of neighborhood characteristics and spatial structure in shaping crime rates. Specifically, neighborhood characteristics, such as poverty, social cohesion, and physical disorder, can interact with the spatial structure of neighborhoods, resulting in spatial autocorrelation, which is the tendency for crime to cluster in space (Cole, 2019;Povala et al, 2020;Adeyemi et al, 2021;Boqué et al, 2022).…”