The When, Where, and Who of Unstructured Socializing: Exploring the Intersection of Crime Propensity and Neighborhood Collective Efficacy

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ABSTRACT Prior research consistently finds unsupervised and unstructured peer-oriented socializing conducive to crime but struggles to study its simultaneous relation to neighborhood- and individual-level characteristics. This study analyses spatial and temporal patterns of unstructured socializing, considering both individual crime propensity and neighborhood collective efficacy, using data from the Malmö Individual and Neighborhood Development Study and Malmö Community Survey. Employing space–time budget methodology, the findings reveal that unstructured socializing is more common among adolescents with higher crime propensity and typically occurs outside their residential neighborhoods. Contrary to expectations, unstructured socializing is not more prevalent in neighborhoods with lower collective efficacy nor is there an interaction effect between crime propensity and collective efficacy. Overall, the results highlight the need to integrate both place and individual factors to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the spatiotemporal patterns of unstructured socializing.