Abstract
There are competing theories of what drives crime in cities and neighbourhoods. Two widely cited theoretical approaches focused on social disorganization and institutional anomie propose different explanations for the causes and dynamics of criminality. Yet these theories are seldom empirically tested, much less acknowledged, outside of North America and Western Europe. This article considers their applicability in Mexico’s capital, a sprawling metropolis of more than 20 million people. The authors administer spatial and general statistical tests to explain the geographical patterns of crime rates across multiple forms of criminality. The assessment demonstrates that both theories accurately predict the spatial distribution of crime. The article concludes with a host of policy conclusions, emphasizing social crime prevention over more traditional law and order measures. and consolidating families, parents and childcare.
Highlights
An accurate and granular understanding of crime patterns at the city and neighbourhood scale is essential for intelligent policing and crime prevention
We calculate global and local spatial autocorrelation coefficients in order to identify the level of spatiality in the dependent variable (DV)
We calculate correlations between the measures representing each theory with the dependent variable, that is, the rate of crime for all crimes
Summary
Two widely cited theoretical approaches focused on social disorganization and institutional anomie propose different explanations for the causes and dynamics of criminality. These theories are seldom empirically tested, much less acknowledged, outside of North America and Western Europe. This article considers their applicability in Mexico’s capital, a sprawling metropolis of more than 20 million people. The authors administer spatial and general statistical tests to explain the geographical patterns of crime rates across multiple forms of criminality. The assessment demonstrates that both theories accurately predict the spatial distribution of crime.
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