Examining interactive effects of characteristics of the social and physical environment on aggravated assault

Abstract

Prior studies have largely focused on socioeconomic and demographic correlates of neighborhood crime rates. A largely distinct literature has highlighted the criminogenic influence of the built environment. Recent research cross-pollinated these literatures and demonstrated that, controlling for structural socioeconomic disadvantage, an aggregated neighborhood risk of crime (ANROC) measure capturing the influence of the built environment has a strong and robust influence on neighborhood crime rates. Instead of viewing variation in crime as a product of social factors or characteristics of the built environment, the current study advances the literature by exploring an interactive model viewing crime as a product of social factors and the built environment. Conceptually, we describe two distinct processes (attenuation and amplification) by which social structural sources of violence and characteristics of the environmental backcloth may interact. In assessing the salience of these processes, the current study provides a more accurate assessment of how divergent ecological contexts work contemporaneously to influence neighborhood levels of crime. Results of our block-group level analyses of a single city indicate structural disadvantage is an exceptionally robust predictor of crime, but the influence of the ANROC measure is contingent upon levels of socioeconomic disadvantage in the neighborhood at-large.