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Objectives We propose and test a multilevel theoretical model of crime concentration by combining criminal opportunity and social disorganization into a single hierarchical model. Our theoretical model simultaneously answers calls to integrate routine activities theory and social disorganization theory and provides a logical framework for understanding the connections between neighborhood context and micro-spatial environmental conditions. Methods To test our theory we used multilevel negative binomial regression with controls for spatial dependence to estimate street segment level crime counts. Results Findings showed the expected direct effects on street segment-level violent and property crime of both micro- and neighborhood-level characteristics. Our results for cross-level interaction effects provided evidence neighborhood context moderates the association between street segment-level variables and crime. Model comparisons using likelihood ratio tests revealed that including neighborhood-level characteristics improved explanatory power relative to single level models. Conclusions This study lends support to a multilevel theory of the law of crime concentration that includes both neighborhood and street segment level conditions.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an important global public health problem, affecting women across the life span and increasing risk for a number of unfavorable health outcomes. Typically conceptualized as a private form of violence, most research has focused on individual-level risk markers. Recently, more scholarly attention has been paid to the role that the residential neighborhood environment may play in influencing the occurrence of IPV. With research accumulating since the 1990s, increasing prominence of the topic, and no comprehensive literature reviews yet undertaken, it is time to take stock of what is known, what remains unknown, and the methods and concepts investigators have considered. In this article, we undertake a comprehensive, systematic review of the literature to date on the relationship between neighborhood environment and IPV, asking, “what is the status of scholarship related to the association between neighborhood environment and IPV occurrence?” Although the literature is young, it is receiving increasing attention from researchers in sociology, public health, criminology, and other fields. Obvious gaps in the literature include limited consideration of nonurban areas, limited theoretical motivation, and limited consideration of the range of potential contributors to environmental effects on IPV—such as built environmental factors or access to services. In addition, explanations of the pathways by which place influences the occurrence of IPV draw mainly from social disorganization theory that was developed in urban settings in the United States and may need to be adapted, especially to be useful in explaining residential environmental correlates of IPV in rural or non-U.S. settings. A more complete theoretical understanding of the relationship between neighborhood environment and IPV, especially considering differences among urban, semiurban, and rural settings and developed and developing country settings, will be necessary to advance research questions and improve policy and intervention responses to reduce the burden of IPV.

Social disorganization theory is one of the most widely tested theories in criminology, yet few studies consider the temporal and spatial dynamics of neighborhood composition, neighborhood informal social control, and crime. To better understand these relationships, we use census data, police data, and three survey waves of data from a unique longitudinal dataset with over 4,000 respondents living across 148 neighborhoods in an Australian city undergoing rapid population growth. We employ cross-lagged reciprocal feedback models to test the central tenets of social disorganization theory and its contemporary advances for three crime types: violent crime, property crime, and drug crime. Further, we examine the reciprocal relationship between neighborhood composition, three components of informal social control (neighborhood social ties, expectations for informal social control, and the exercise of informal social control), and crime and whether socio-demographic changes in nearby neighborhoods shape these relationships over time. We find that changes in the socio-demographic composition in both focal and nearby areas influence neighborhood informal social control; however, in contrast to cross-sectional studies of social disorganization theory, our results reveal little support that neighborhood informal social control significantly decreases crime over time.

Objectives To test for statistically significant change in crime rates across neighbourhoods in Vancouver, Canada, resulting from social restrictions within the natural experiment of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Differential local Moran’s I is used to identify statistically significant change in crime patterns across Vancouver’s neighbourhoods because of COVID-19. These changes are analysed with variables from social disorganization theory constructs using ANOVA. Results At the neighbourhood level, all crime types have significant change during COVID, but not always at the city level. Different neighbourhoods have different changes in crime despite these changes appearing to be constant at the city level; local effects asre important to consider. Variables representing the constructs of social disorganization theory are able to predict these changes. Conclusions COVID-19 has changed the patterns of crime in Vancouver, but most often in theoretically expected ways. Local changes are critical to understand crime during a pandemic.

Social capital is thought to represent an environmental factor associated with the risk of psychotic disorder (PD). This study aims to investigate the association between neighbourhood-level social capital and clinical transitions within the spectrum of psychosis. In total, 2175 participants, representative of a community-based population, were assessed twice (6 years apart) to determine their position within an extended psychosis spectrum: no symptoms, subclinical psychotic experiences (PE), clinical PE, PD. A variable representing change between baseline (T1) and follow-up (T2) assessment was constructed. Four dimensions of social capital (informal social control, social disorganisation, social cohesion and trust, cognitive social capital) were assessed at baseline in an independent sample, and the measures were aggregated to the neighbourhood level. Associations between the variable representing psychosis spectrum change from T1 to T2 and the social capital variables were investigated. Lower levels of neighbourhood-level social disorganisation, meaning higher levels of social capital, reduced the risk of clinical PE onset (OR 0.300; z = -2.75; p = 0.006), persistence of clinical PE (OR 0.314; z = -2.36; p = 0.018) and also the transition to PD (OR 0.136; z = -2.12; p = 0.034). The other social capital variables were not associated with changes from T1 to T2. Neighbourhood-level social disorganisation may be associated with the risk of psychosis expression. Whilst replication of this finding is required, it may point to level of social disorganisation as a public health target moderating population psychosis risk.

Objectives Social disorganization states that neighborhood social ties and shared expectations for informal social control are necessary for the exercise of informal social control actions. Yet this association is largely assumed rather than empirically examined in the literature. This paper examines the relationship between neighborhood social ties, shared expectations for informal social control and actual parochial and public informal social control actions taken by residents in response to big neighborhood problems. Methods Using multi-level logistic regression models, we integrate Australian Bureau of Statistics census data with the Australian Community Capacity Study survey data of 1310 residents reporting 2614 significant neighborhood problems across 148 neighborhoods to examine specific informal social control actions taken by residents when faced with neighborhood problems. Results We do not find a relationship between shared expectations for informal social control and residents’ informal social control actions. Individual social ties, however, do lead to an increase in informal social control actions in response to ‘big’ neighborhood problems. Residents with strong ties are more likely to engage in public and parochial informal social control actions than those individuals who lack social ties. Yet individuals living in neighborhoods with high levels of social ties are only moderately more likely to engage in parochial informal social control action than those living in areas where these ties are not present. Shared expectations for informal social control are not associated with the likelihood that residents engage in informal social control actions when faced with a significant neighborhood problem. Conclusion Neighborhood social ties and shared expectations for informal social control are not unilaterally necessary for the exercise of informal social control actions. Our results challenge contemporary articulations of social disorganization theory that assume that the availability of neighborhood social ties or expectations for action are associated with residents actually doing something to exercise of informal social control.

Research on intimate partner violence (IPV) and victimization is widespread across disciplines. To date, the majority of research underscores the importance of individual-level factors to explain IPV, thereby neglecting the significance of macro-level elements. Nevertheless, research suggests that the characteristics of the neighborhood where an individual lives are important for fully understanding IPV. This review focuses on the effects of neighborhoods and macro-level context on violence between intimate partners, specifically identifying empirical studies that have examined contextual predictors of IPV utilizing the major tenets of social disorganization theory. The authors note consistencies and differences across research results and describe study features that may influence the patterns of these findings. Finally, the authors provide both theoretical and methodological recommendations for future research.

Objective The current study proposes unique methods for apportioning existing census data in blocks to street segments and examines the effects of structural characteristics of street segments on crime. Also, this study tests if the effects of structural characteristics of street segments are similar with or distinct from those of blocks. Methods This study compiled a unique dataset in which block-level structural characteristics are apportioned to street segments utilizing the 2010 U.S. Census data of the cities of Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Huntington Beach in Orange County, California. Negative binomial regression models predicting crime that include measures of social disorganization and criminal opportunities in street segments and blocks were estimated. Results The results show that whereas some of the coefficients tested at the street segment level are similar to those aggregated to blocks, a few were quite different (most notably, racial/ethnic heterogeneity). Additional analyses confirm that the imputation methods are generally valid compared to data actually collected at the street segment level. Conclusions The results from the street segment models suggest that the structural characteristics from social disorganization and criminal opportunities theories at street segments may operate as crucial settings for crime. Also the results indicate that structural characteristics have generally similar effects on crime in street segments and blocks, yet have some distinct effects at the street segment level that may not be observable when looking at the block level. Such differences underscore the necessity of serious consideration of the issues of level of aggregation and unit of analysis when examining the structural characteristics-crime nexus.

Firearm violence is a leading public health issue that contributes to significant health inequalities within communities. Relatively little is known about the community-level social processes that occur at the street segment level and contributed to the community variation of firearm violence. This study examines the spatial patterns of firearm shooting events on street segments and the associated community-level social processes at both the street segment and neighborhood level. Multilevel mixed-effects Poisson regression was used to assess the relationship between measures of social disorder, physical disorder, and collective efficacy at the street segment-level and neighborhood-level measures of social disorganization theory. The results demonstrate that firearm shooting events occur on a small number of street segments across the city. Street segments with higher levels of social and physical disorder, along with lower levels of collective efficacy, are expected to have higher rates of firearm shooting events when accounting for neighborhood-level measures. Overall, the findings indicate specific street segments are experiencing higher rates of firearm shooting events and that these events are influenced by social processes. Prevention efforts should be focused on street segments experiencing higher rates of shootings.

Recently, scholars have argued that local social and economic institutions, such as bars and payday lenders, can influence neighborhood crime outcomes. Drawing on routine activities theory and social disorganization theory, such research has posited that such institutions can directly affect crime rates by providing potential targets or encouraging criminal behavior, and can indirectly affect crime rates by discouraging social control efforts. We draw on this literature, as well as the literature on reactions to firearm prevalence, to examine the effects of gun shops on local crime rates. Using data for the year 2000 drawn from the National Neighborhood Crime Study (NNCS), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' Federal Firearms Licensees Database (FFLD), and the National Establishment Time-Series Longitudinal Business Database (NETS), we use hierarchical linear models to examine how the prevalence of gun shops at the tract and metro level contribute to tract-level rates of violent crime in eighty-nine large US cities. Our findings indicate that gun shop prevalence in urban areas is associated with increased rates of homicides and robberies, and that these effects are more pronounced in neighborhoods characterized by residential instability. We conclude with a discussion of policy considerations and avenues for future research on local institutions.