Empirical Objections Research Articles

Crime Prevention and the Future of the Probation Service

Recent expansion in the conventional work-load of the Probation Service has not removed the basic empirical and theoretical objections to present probation practice. However, there are few signs of the Service embracing crime prevention as its central objective. Crime prevention and community work are vague and problematic concepts. However, they do presuppose a 'bias towards the poor' which has characterised the Probation Service's traditional concerns.

Zur Revision der Sozialraumanalyse. Ein Beitrag zur Ableitung von Indikatoren der sozialräumlichen Differenzierung in Städten / Towards a Revision of Social Area Analysis

Abstract One of the few instruments for the analysis of urban sociospatial differentiation, Social Area Analysis, has been widely discussed and has met theoretical as well as empirical objections. In the actual search for indicators of urban differentiation, this problem gains new significance. A model of differentiation, developped out of the empirical knowledge of classical human ecology, is juxtaposed to the Shevky-Bell-approach. Empirical tests show that the indicators of Social Area Analysis may be substituted by two single variables: land value and rent, without any loss of information. Some areas for the application of urban indicators are discussed. At the end, some arguments for the relevance of the ecological approach in theory construction are presented.