This research uses data from the Area‐Identified National Crime Victimization Survey to examine the influence of neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage on the likelihood of police notification by victims of violence. The results indicate that neighborhood disadvantage does not significantly affect the likelihood of police notification among robbery and aggravated assault victims. However, a significant curvilinear effect of neighborhood disadvantage is observed for simple assault victims. The implications of these results for community‐level crime research and for theoretical perspectives on police notification are discussed.
AbstractUntil recently, national‐level data on criminal victimization in the United States did not include information on immigrant or citizenship status of respondents. This data‐infrastructure limitation has hindered scientific understanding of whether immigrants are more or less likely than native‐born Americans to be criminally victimized and how victimization may vary among immigrants of different statuses. We address these issues in the present study by using new data from the 2017–2018 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to explore the association between citizenship status and victimization risk in a nationally representative sample of households and persons aged 12 years and older. The research is guided by a theoretical framing that integrates insights from studies of citizenship with the literature on immigration and crime, as well as with theories of victimization. We find that a person's foreign‐born status (but not their acquired U.S. citizenship) confers protection against victimization. We also find that the protective benefit associated with being foreign born does not extend to those with ambiguous citizenship status, who in our data exhibit attributes similar to the known characteristics of undocumented immigrants. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings and the potential ways to extend the research.
AbstractUsing data from the Area‐Identified National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), we provide a national assessment of the impact of neighborhood immigrant concentration on whether violence is reported to the police. By drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives, we outline how the level of violence reporting could be higher or lower in immigrant neighborhoods, as well as how this may depend on individual race/ethnicity and the history of immigration in the county in which immigrant neighborhoods are located. Controlling for both individual‐ and neighborhood‐level conditions, our findings indicate that within traditional immigrant counties, rates of violence reporting in immigrant neighborhoods are similar to those observed elsewhere. In contrast, within newer immigrant destinations, we observe much lower rates of violence reporting in neighborhoods with a large concentration of immigrants. Our study findings reveal comparable patterns for Whites, Blacks, and Latinos. The results have important implications for theory, policy, and future research.
AbstractResearchers in the United States have increasingly recognized that immigration reduces crime, but it remains unresolved whether this applies to people of different racial–ethnic and economic backgrounds. By using the 2008–2012 area‐identified National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), we evaluate the effect of neighborhood immigrant concentration on individual violence risk across race/ethnicity and labor market stratification factors in areas with different histories of immigration. The results of our analysis reveal three key patterns. First, we find a consistent protective role of immigrant concentration that is not weakened by low education, low income, unemployment, or labor market competition. Therefore, even economically disadvantaged people enjoy the crime‐reduction benefit of immigration. Second, we find support for threshold models that predict a nonlinear, stronger protective role of immigrant concentration on violence at higher levels of immigrant concentration. The protective function of immigration also is higher in areas of longer histories of immigration. Third, compared with Blacks and Whites, Latinos receive a greater violence‐reduction benefit of immigrant concentration possibly because they live in closer proximity with immigrants and share common sociocultural features. Nevertheless, immigrant concentration yields a diminishing return in reducing Latino victimization as immigrants approach a near‐majority of neighborhood residents. The implications of these results are discussed.
This research assesses the empirical validity of the classic anomie theory articulated by Robert Merton and the important contemporary extension of his work encompassed in Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional anomie theory. Using a unique aggregate‐level data set, our empirical investigation reveals that, consistent with theoretical expectations, instrumental crime rates are significantly higher in areas where both a strong commitment to monetary success goals and a weak commitment to legitimate means exist. The tendency for this "goals/means" value complex to translate into higher rates of instrumental crime is reduced in the context of higher levels of welfare assistance and more frequent socializing among families. We also find that low levels of educational and economic attainment and high levels of inequality enhance the degree to which commitment to monetary success translates into instrumental crime. Overall, the findings are supportive of some claims by classic and contemporary anomie theories, but also they point to the need for further refinement of these perspectives and additional assessments of their empirical validity.
Although many efforts have been made during the past several decades to increase the reporting of crime to the police, we know little about the nature of long‐term crime‐reporting trends. Most research in this area has been limited to specific crime types (e.g., sexual assault), or it has not taken into account possible changes in the characteristics of incidents associated with police notification. In this article, we advance knowledge about long‐term trends in the reporting of crime to the police by using data from the National Crime Survey (NCS) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and methods that take into account possible changes in the factors that affect reporting at the individual and incident level as well as changes in survey methodology. Using data from 1973 to 2005, our findings show that significant increases have occurred in the likelihood of police notification for sexual assault crimes as well as for other forms of assault and that these increases were observed for violence against women and violence against men, stranger and nonstranger violence, as well as crimes experienced by members of different racial and ethnic groups. The reporting of property victimization (i.e., motor vehicle theft, burglary, and larceny) also increased across time. Overall, observed increases in crime reporting account for about half of the divergence between the NCVS and the Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) in the estimated magnitude of the 1990s crime decline—a result that highlights the need to corroborate findings about crime trends from multiple data sources.
"One of the most influential statements in the anomie theory tradition has been Merton's argument that the volume of instrumental property crime should be higher where there is a greater imbalance between the degree of commitment to monetary success goals and the degree of commitment to legitimate means of pursing such goals. Contemporary anomie theories stimulated by Merton's perspective, most notably Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional anomie theory, have expanded the scope conditions by emphasizing lethal criminal violence as an outcome to which anomie theory is highly relevant, and virtually all contemporary empirical studies have focused on applying the perspective to explaining spatial variation in homicide rates. In the present paper, the authors argue that current explications of Merton's theory and IAT have not adequately conveyed the relevance of the core features of the anomie perspective to lethal violence. They propose an expanded anomie model in which an unbalanced pecuniary value system - the core causal variable in Merton's theory and IAT - translates into higher levels of homicide primarily in indirect ways by increasing levels of firearm prevalence, drug market activity, and property crime, and by enhancing the degree to which these factors stimulate lethal outcomes. Using aggregate-level data collected during the mid-to-late 1970s for a sample of relatively large social aggregates within the U.S., the authors find a significant effect on homicide rates of an interaction term reflecting high levels of commitment to monetary success goals and low levels of commitment to legitimate means. Virtually all of this effect is accounted for by higher levels of property crime and drug market activity that occur in areas with an unbalanced pecuniary value system. Their analysis also reveals that property crime is more apt to lead to homicide under conditions of high levels of structural disadvantage. These and other findings underscore the potential value of elaborating the anomie perspective to explicitly account for lethal violence." (author's abstract)
One of the most influential statements in the anomie theory tradition has been Merton's argument that the volume of instrumental property crime should be higher where there is a greater imbalance between the degree of commitment to monetary success goals and the degree of commitment to legitimate means of pursuing such goals. Contemporary anomie theories stimulated by Merton's perspective, most notably Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional anomie theory, have expanded the scope conditions by emphasizing lethal criminal violence as an outcome to which anomie theory is highly relevant, and virtually all contemporary empirical studies have focused on applying the perspective to explaining spatial variation in homicide rates. In the present paper, we argue that current explications of Merton's theory and IAT have not adequately conveyed the relevance of the core features of the anomie perspective to lethal violence. We propose an expanded anomie model in which an unbalanced pecuniary value system - the core causal variable in Merton's theory and IAT - translates into higher levels of homicide primarily in indirect ways by increasing levels of firearm prevalence, drug market activity, and property crime, and by enhancing the degree to which these factors stimulate lethal outcomes. Using aggregate-level data collected during the mid-to-late 1970s for a sample of relatively large social aggregates within the U.S., we find a significant effect on homicide rates of an interaction term reflecting high levels of commitment to monetary success goals and low levels of commitment to legitimate means. Virtually all of this effect is accounted for by higher levels of property crime and drug market activity that occur in areas with an unbalanced pecuniary value system. Our analysis also reveals that property crime is more apt to lead to homicide under conditions of high levels of structural disadvantage. These and other findings underscore the potential value of elaborating the anomie perspective to explicitly account for lethal violence. Adapted from the source document.
AbstractYouth involvement in crime has declined substantially over the past few decades, yet the reasons for this trend remain unclear. We advance the literature by examining the role of several potentially important shifts in individual attitudes and behaviors that may help to account for the observed temporal variation in youth delinquency. Our multilevel analysis of repeated cross‐sectional data from eighth and tenth grade students in the Monitoring the Future (MTF) study indicates that changes in youth offending prevalence were not associated with changes in youth attachment and commitment to school, community involvement, or parental supervision after school. In contrast, the study provides suggestive evidence that the significant reduction in youth offending prevalence observed since the early 1990s was significantly associated with a decrease in unstructured socializing and alcohol consumption and, to a lesser extent, with a decrease in youth preferences for risky activities. Implications for existing theoretical explanations and future research on youth crime trends are discussed.
A follow-up study of 19,955 releases from Irish prisons shows interesting variation in rates of recidivism. Prisoners who, during their sentences, were occasionally allowed to venture outside for vocational or family-related purposes were significantly less likely to be reimprisoned. This held true up to 4 years after their eventual release and is a clear empirical demonstration of the benefits, other than humanitarian, of maintaining prisoners' social capital.
AbstractExtant research has provided support for the micro‐level predictions of rational choice models of crime. Yet, a central feature of the rational choice perspective in the broader social sciences—that it is multilevel in focus, situating individuals within broader community social structures—has been neglected within criminology. In this article, we discuss and test a model that links community structural characteristics to several individual expectations and preferences relevant to crime. Using data from the Pathways to Desistance study, we find that objective levels of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage influence individuals' perceptions of, and preferences for, the risks, costs, and rewards associated with offending indirectly by affecting perceived disorder and perceived opportunities for legitimate avenues of success within one's neighborhood. The implications of a multilevel rational choice model of offending are discussed.
