The Internal Structure of the Ghetto and the Criminal Commute

Abstract

The diversity of the urban landscape continues to be part of our understanding of urban social problems in America. Urbanization and its attendant characteristics have long been sacrosanct, and our understanding of the geographical character of crime relies in part on analyzing the disparate elements of the urban matrix. Social ecologists agree that urban crime is a product of the interaction of the social, cultural, and economic factors associated with urban areas. In this way, crime has been linked inextricably to the so-called natural areas first identified by researchers of the Chicago School of Sociology. Ecologists have considered the increased opportunities for crime afforded by the central business district (CBD) and the decline in criminal activity with increasing distance from this area. The result was the recognition of the CBD and its transitional areas as the first &dquo;natural areas.&dquo;The ghetto has also been labeled a &dquo;natural area&dquo; because of the characteristics of its social milieu and its physical environment. In part, the interaction of these factors has been used to explain the propensity for blacks, who primarily reside in racially segregated enclaves, to commit crimes.

Where Offenders Choose to Attack: A Discrete Choice Model of Robberies in Chicago*

“…These well-documented features of U.S. cities, including Chicago (e.g., Johnston, Poulson, and Forrest, 2003;Massey, 1990;Wilson, 1987), are likely to restrain the mobility of its population, including offenders, and can be considered as a "social barrier" (Rengert, 2004). Pettiway (1982Pettiway ( , 1985 studied the mobility of burglars and robbers in Milwaukee and distinguished three types of areas on the basis of the racial composition of the population: the black ghetto area, the white non-ghetto area, and an interstitial area around the ghetto (where the composition was more racially mixed). He observed that those who lived in the black ghetto would overwhelmingly offend there, whereas those who did not offended outside the ghetto.…”

Heroin Mismatch in the Motor City: Addiction, Segregation, and the Geography of Opportunity

“…These “hustles” arise through a combination of planning and spontaneity that is driven by both addiction and economics, and actively shaped by multiple “elements in the urban matrix” (Pettiway, 1985). In his words,

When I wake up, I usually try to have that [money for heroin] the night before.

…”

“…The intensity of ghettoization (Zukin 1998; Chaddha & Wilson, 2008; Gans, 2008) may be one important corollary of the entrenchment and operation of such markets. Both criminal behavior and the perpetuation of racial segregation may be conceived as dynamic interactions of individuals with these already segregated environments (Pettiway, 1982, 1985; Yin, 2009). Neighborhood disadvantage and disorder, as research has repeatedly shown, generate effects that worsen the mental health of residents, making substance abuse more likely (Ensminger, Anthony & McCord, 1997; Nikelly, 2001; Boardman et al, 2001).…”

“…In the early 1980s, Pettiway (1982, 1985) reported on the geographic selectivity of robbery and burglary offenders in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He found that ghetto residents were more likely to commit offenses in other ghetto neighborhoods than in non-ghetto areas, even though these areas were not as wealthy, simply because of physical and social convenience: “The constricting nature of the ghetto and the resulting short offense-residence distances suggest that black offenders travel much shorter distances than their white counterparts” (1982, p. 267).…”

“…At the same time, he also reported that residents of non-ghetto areas only rarely ventured into ghetto areas to commit crimes. In a later publication, Pettiway (1985, p. 207) wrote of the dynamic “interactions with other elements in the urban matrix” that tended to produce specific patterns of both criminal and non-criminal behavior. Though Pettiway focused on select categories of property crime (robbery and burglary), it is reasonable to assume that similar factors might affect other illicit activities, such as heroin acquisition and use, as individuals respond in clearly patterned ways to a matrix of structures and relationships—including racial divisions--that define their everyday lives.…”