National Neighborhood Crime Study Research Articles

Inheriting the Grade: HOLC “Redlining” Maps and Contemporary Neighborhood Crime

Communities and crime research often invokes historical housing policies to explain vast disparities in crime. However, these assertions are rarely tested. Using lending security maps from the government-sponsored Home Owner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC), we examine the consequences for neighborhood crime of a notorious policy intervention in the housing market: the practice of “redlining” that discouraged investment in Black, non-White, and poor areas. The HOLC maps represent class and race biases embedded in the housing market and may have institutionalized the practice of redlining. Pairing data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study (Wave 2) with HOLC maps, we find neighborhoods with relatively poor HOLC grades inherited more violence and burglary some 70 years later. Furthermore, greater concentrations of contemporary neighborhood disadvantage, racial segregation, and housing instability largely explain these associations. Findings underscore the long shadow of historical interventions in the housing market for inequalities in the spatial distribution of crime today.

The Dynamic Racial Structure and Disparities in Neighborhood Crime Change

AbstractCross-sectional scholarship demonstrates the importance of the U.S. racial structure in precipitating dramatic racial divisions in serious crime across neighborhoods. Yet, we know much less about the degree and sources of racial disparities in how neighborhood crime changes over time, despite considerable evolution in the components of the racial order. We articulate a dynamic racial structural perspective that centers the unfolding nature of residential segregation in producing and altering racially structured socioeconomic realities. We contend that these racialized structural inequalities, in turn, lead neighborhoods on unequal paths of crime change. We assess this perspective with new panel data (circa 2000 and 2010) from the National Neighborhood Crime Study for 7,875 census tracts across 75 cities. Despite considerable socioeconomic upheaval and demographic change during the first decade of the 2000s, we find substantial disparities in neighborhood violence and burglary change that indicate the reproduction of the ethno-racial divide. Furthermore, our dynamic racial structural model explains much of these inequalities in crime change. A dynamic racial structure perspective lays a foundation for understanding the consequences of the evolving U.S. racial structure for unequal exposure to crime across neighborhoods over time.

The Multilevel Effects of Changes in Disadvantage on Changes in Crime

While social disorganization theory suggests the importance of change, most prior research examining macro-level criminological associations uses cross-sectional data. The current study examines the multilevel relationship between changes in disadvantage and changes in crime over time using four data sources: the National Neighborhood Crime Study, the 2000 U.S. Census, crime-incidents occurring between 2005 and 2009, and the 2005–2009 American Community Survey. Analyzing 6,068 census tracts within 53 large U.S. cities using multilevel models with time nested within tracts nested within cities, I parse out the contribution of changes in tract-level disadvantage from city-level disadvantage to changes in robbery and burglary rates. Results indicate the importance of both static and dynamic associations between disadvantage and crime, at both the neighborhood and city level.

Untangling Eviction, Disadvantage, Race, and Social Processes: Neighborhood Factors Influencing Crime

Eviction is concentrated in poor communities of color, and studies indicate eviction may affect social processes. Community and crime literature demonstrates that structural factors, such as socio-economic status and racial composition, are linked with crime and that social processes protect neighborhoods from crime. Therefore, eviction is likely concentrated in neighborhoods vulnerable to crime, but the connection between eviction and neighborhood violent crime has not yet been examined. Using data from Princeton University’s Eviction Lab National Database, the National Neighborhood Crime Study 2, and the Boston Neighborhood Survey, this Boston-based study is a first step in filling this knowledge gap. Findings indicate that eviction is positively associated with crime and partially explains why crime is concentrated in disadvantaged communities of color.

Vulnerable to Disparity? The Imperfect Alignment of Neighborhood Relative Inequality with the Racial Invariance Thesis

Despite the importance of relative inequality in studies on race, place and crime, existing literature has paid little attention to the possibility of racial differences in the effect of relative inequality at the neighborhood level. I argue the anomie and social disorganization frameworks make competing predictions regarding whether relative inequality aligns with the racial invariance thesis, and assess hypotheses derived from each perspective using data from the 2000 National Neighborhood Crime Study. A comparison of marginal effects derived from multilevel negative binomial regression models indicate relative inequality effects on homicide are larger in neighborhoods comprised primarily by Blacks and Latinos, while effects on robbery and burglary are greater in White, Latino and Integrated areas. My observations add to a growing body of work demonstrating the importance of income inequality for neighborhood crime but suggest the magnitude of the effect varies considerably by crime type and neighborhood ethnoracial composition.

Early exposure to neighborhood crime and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors.

This paper examines the relationship between exposure to neighborhood crime and child mental health. We merge restricted contextual data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study with the National Neighborhood Crime Study, a nationally representative neighborhood sample containing tract-level Uniform Crime Report data for large U.S. cities and clustered OLS regression models to examine how objective measures of robbery or burglary rates at or around birth influence the health and behavior of 566 girls and 646 boys in urban neighborhoods. Findings demonstrate that living in a high crime neighborhood is associated with higher levels of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems for preschool-aged boys and girls. However, these patterns differ for boys and girls and across measures of violent (robbery) and property crime (burglary).

Modeling Urban Neighborhood Violence: The Systemic Model and Variable Effects of Social Structure

The systemic model of crime illustrates how neighborhood social structure influences social networks needed for the regulation of crime. This study examines whether those structural influences are stable or variable across a distribution of neighborhoods on violent crime. Study data are derived from the National Neighborhood Crime Study, yielding crime and structural data on a total of 6,927 census tracts within 69 U.S. cities. Quantile regression is used to model structural and spatially lagged violence effects on neighborhood violence. Results demonstrate that the influence of structural disadvantage decreases as neighborhood violence increases. Concomitantly, nearby violence, residential instability, and vacant housing effects become more salient as local violence increases. Local racial composition conditions these effects as well. Study findings suggest that local public safety interventions should be developed relative to a neighborhood’s ecological location on violent crime.

Joblessness, Poverty, and Neighborhood Crime: Testing Wilson’s Assertions of Jobless Poverty

Political and public rhetoric often tout the detrimental effects of poverty and the stabilizing effects of jobs when discussing issues of crime and disorder. Several decades ago, William Julius Wilson proposed that while poverty has been a long-standing problem across U.S. cities, a “new urban poverty” associated with the massive disappearance of jobs may better explain neighborhood crime and violence. Although scholarship continues to theorize about the unique criminogenic effects of area-level poverty and joblessness, criminological research has not systematically examined the distinct effects of poverty and jobless poverty on neighborhood crime. In the present analysis, we use data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study (NNCS) to provide the first empirical investigation of how joblessness, separately from poverty, influences rates of homicide and other reported violence across 6,406 neighborhoods in 53 U.S. metropolitan areas. A spatially adjusted, multilevel regression analysis reveals that places with poverty and joblessness are distinct from areas with poverty and no marked joblessness. Analysis by neighborhood further reveals that joblessness has a stronger effect on violent crime than poverty itself in severely impoverished areas. As such, we find support for Wilson’s distinct, criminogenic notion of jobless poverty.

Clarifying the Relationship Between Racial Diversity and Crime: Neighborhoods Versus Cities

Since the 1970s, racial diversity within neighborhoods and cities has been increasing. Although social disorganization theorists have long argued that diversity reduces social cohesion leading to increases in crime, the association between diversity and crime may be more nuanced than previously thought. More specifically, neighborhood processes occur within the broader context of the cities within which they are embedded. The current investigation uses data from 9,593 census tracts nested within 91 large U.S. cities from the National Neighborhood Crime Study (NNCS) to test whether the association between neighborhood diversity and crime differs by city diversity. Results indicate an interaction between neighborhood and city diversity, such that the effect of neighborhood diversity on crime becomes weaker as city diversity increases.

Gun Shops as Local Institutions: Federal Firearms Licensees, Social Disorganization, and Neighborhood Violent Crime

Recently, scholars have argued that local social and economic institutions, such as bars and payday lenders, can influence neighborhood crime outcomes. Drawing on routine activities theory and social disorganization theory, such research has posited that such institutions can directly affect crime rates by providing potential targets or encouraging criminal behavior, and can indirectly affect crime rates by discouraging social control efforts. We draw on this literature, as well as the literature on reactions to firearm prevalence, to examine the effects of gun shops on local crime rates. Using data for the year 2000 drawn from the National Neighborhood Crime Study (NNCS), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' Federal Firearms Licensees Database (FFLD), and the National Establishment Time-Series Longitudinal Business Database (NETS), we use hierarchical linear models to examine how the prevalence of gun shops at the tract and metro level contribute to tract-level rates of violent crime in eighty-nine large US cities. Our findings indicate that gun shop prevalence in urban areas is associated with increased rates of homicides and robberies, and that these effects are more pronounced in neighborhoods characterized by residential instability. We conclude with a discussion of policy considerations and avenues for future research on local institutions.

Age Structure and Neighborhood Homicide: Testing and Extending the Differential Institutional Engagement Hypothesis

We examine the empirical applicability of differential institutional engagement in explaining the youth age structure effect on neighborhood homicide. Using the National Neighborhood Crime Study and Census data, we conduct a multilevel spatial analysis of homicides in 8,307 census tracts. We find support for three indicators of differential institutional engagement (disengaged youth, educational engagement, employment engagement). An additional dimension of institutional engagement (familial engagement) operates in the expected direction but is not statistically significant. We argue that previous cross-sectional studies reporting a null or negative relationship between percentage of young and homicide are due to omitting measures of institutional youth (dis)engagement.

Speaking the Same Language? English Language Fluency and Violent Crime at the Neighborhood Level

ABSTRACTIn this article, we seek to extend knowledge of the relationship between immigration and crime. We synthesize existing theories and literatures and argue that one largely overlooked aspect of immigration—language use—may play critical roles in how and why immigration is related to macro-level violence rates. Specifically, there are theoretical reasons to expect that levels of lack of English fluency and of bilinguals in neighborhoods will be associated with violent crime rates. We test these relationships using data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study (NNCS). The multivariate results reveal that lack of English fluency has a nonlinear relationship with homicide and robbery, such that when lack of fluency is low, crime rates increase, but the positive effect diminishes as English nonfluent individuals come to represent a greater proportion of neighborhood population. In addition, levels of bilingualism moderate the effects of lack of English-language fluency for homicide but less so for robbery. This finding applies to the total sample as well as in traditional immigrant destinations, but not in new destinations.

The Racial Invariance Thesis and Neighborhood Crime

Social scientists have long known that crime is higher in minority versus White neighborhoods. Predominant accounts of this pattern invoke a racial invariance thesis, which posits that (1) accounting for inequalities in structural disadvantages substantially diminishes ethno-racial gaps in neighborhood crime and (2) key predictors operate uniformly across neighborhoods of different ethno-racial types. Unfortunately, little work examines the second assertion of racial invariance, leaving conclusions about the thesis tentative. We address this omission with unique data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study that includes information on neighborhood levels of property and violent crime for majority White, Black, Latino, minority, and integrated neighborhoods nested within a representative sample of 87 large cities. Findings show notable similarity in the influence of key predictors of both violent and property crime across the five ethno-racial neighborhoods. When differences are detected, they are due generally to magnitude and not direction. On the whole our work provides healthy support for a perspective that traces ethno-racial disparity in crime across neighborhoods to the structural underpinnings of urban inequality.

Formal controls, neighborhood disadvantage, and violent crime in U.S. cities: Examining (un)intended consequences

PurposeThis study examines the intended and unintended effects of formal social controls on violent crime within and across U.S. cities. MethodsUsing data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study, we assess whether greater police arrest activity and jail incarceration risk are associated with lower violent crime rates across cities. We also investigate whether greater use of these formal social controls exacerbates the relationship between extreme neighborhood disadvantage and violent crime. ResultsResults from multilevel analyses show that some formal controls (jail incarceration risk) reduce violent crime across cities, but other formal controls (police arrest activity) amplify the relationship between extreme neighborhood disadvantage and violent crime within cities. ConclusionsTwo main conclusions can be drawn from our analyses. First, we found evidence that some formal controls do reduce violent crime, while others do not. Second, our results support scholars' arguments that formal controls have unintended consequences (e.g., Clear, 2007, 2008; Rose & Clear, 1998), specifically, by amplifying the effect of extreme neighborhood disadvantage on violent crime.

It's all relative: Concentrated disadvantage within and across neighborhoods and communities, and the consequences for neighborhood crime

PurposePrior studies have largely been unable to account for how variations in inequality across larger areas might impact crime rates in neighborhoods. We examine this broader context both in terms of the spatial area surrounding neighborhoods as well as the larger, city-level context. Although social disorganization, opportunity and relative deprivation theories are typically used to explain variations in neighborhood crime, these theories make differing predictions about crime when the broader areas that neighborhoods are embedded in are taken into account. MethodsWe use data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study for 7956 neighborhoods in 79 cities. Multi-level models with spatial effects are estimated to explain the relationship between crime and city and neighborhood social and economic resources. ResultsDisadvantage in the focal neighborhood and nearby neighborhoods increase neighborhood violent crime, consistent with social disorganization theory. However, relative deprivation provides a more robust explanation for understanding variation in property crime, as the difference in disadvantage between a neighborhood and nearby neighborhoods (or the broader community) explains higher levels of property crime. ConclusionsCriminologists need to account for the larger context of nearby neighborhoods, as well as the broader city, when understanding the effect of relative deprivation on neighborhood-level property crime rates.

The Political Context of the Percent Black-Neighborhood Violence Link: A Multilevel Analysis

A century of urban research has established that percentage black associates positively with violence at the neighborhood level. We extend traditional structural explanations for this association by drawing attention to the political contexts of cities that may influence the race-violence link. Drawing on insights from social movement and racial politics literatures, we contend that the relationship between percentage black and neighborhood violence will be attenuated in cities with greater black political opportunities and black mobilization. We examine this thesis using multilevel data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study that provide sociodemographic and violence data for census tracts nested within 87 large cities. We pair these data with city-level measures of black political opportunities and mobilization. Multilevel analyses reveal that the relationship between percentage black and violence varies substantially across cities, and that the average positive relationship often is attenuated, and reduced to statistical insignificance, in cities with favorable political contexts. We propose that the substantive and symbolic benefits set in motion by favorable political contexts lay the foundation for neighborhood organization against violence.

Does social support mediate the relationship among neighborhood disadvantage, incivilities, crime and physical activity?

ObjectiveNeighborhood disadvantage (ND), incivilities, and crime disproportionately impact minority women, discouraging physical activity (PA). Social support (SS) is a cultural tool promoting PA in minority women. Socially supportive environments may promote PA in disadvantaged neighborhoods, yet few studies have investigated the mediating role of social support among minority women. This study examined SS as a mediator among ND, incivilities, crime, and PA. MethodsThe Health Is Power study aimed to increase PA in African American and Hispanic Latina women (N=410) in Houston and Austin, TX. ND and crime data were taken from the National Neighborhood Crime Study. Incivilities were measured using the Pedestrian Environment Data Scan (PEDS). SS was measured using the Family and Friend Support for Exercise Habits scale and physical activity was measured using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Linear regression analysis was used to examine SS as a mediator following the Baron and Kenny method. ResultsND was negatively associated with PA and SS. SS was not a mediator as it was not significantly associated with ND, crime, and incivilities (F(3,264)=2.02, p>.05) or PA (F(1,266)=3.8 p=.052). ConclusionND significantly discourages PA and limits SS. Future research should focus on developing strategies to overcoming these negative environmental factors.

Neighborhood Immigration, Violence, and City-Level Immigrant Political Opportunities

Using a multilevel comparative framework, we propose that politically receptive city contexts facilitate the viability of marginalized neighborhoods. To illustrate this proposition, we examine the relationship between immigrant concentration and neighborhood violence. Drawing on political process and minority incorporation theories, we argue that favorable immigrant political opportunities will strengthen the often-found inverse relationship between immigration and crime at the neighborhood level. Unique data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study (Peterson and Krivo 2010a) provide demographic and violence information for Census tracts in a representative sample of 87 large cities. We append this dataset with city-level measures of immigrant political opportunities, such as the extent of minority political incorporation into elected offices and pro-immigrant legislation. Multilevel instrumental variable analyses reveal that the inverse relationship between immigrant concentration and neighborhood violent crime is generally enhanced in cities with favorable immigrant political opportunities. We speculate that this occurs because favorable political contexts bolster social organization by enhancing trust and public social control within immigrant neighborhoods. Our findings demonstrate that the fate of neighborhoods marginalized across ethnicity and nativity are shaped by the responsiveness of political actors and structures to their concerns.

Differential Benefits?

This article investigates whether and how residential loans that accrue to neighborhoods in US urban areas vary in their influence on violent and property crime across distinct race–ethnic communities, and depend on neighborhood levels of socioeconomic disadvantage. Building on recent literature on residential loans and crime, and drawing on racial structure and social disorganization perspectives, we posit that non-White and more disadvantaged neighborhoods gain more “bang” (i.e., crime reduction) for the investment dollars that they accrue than White and less disadvantaged areas. Using data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study for over 8,000 neighborhoods across 87 US cities, our multilevel analyses of violent and property crime for four types of neighborhoods revealed support for these hypotheses. While all types of neighborhoods benefit from a larger influx of residential loans, the payoff for African American and Latino areas is considerably greater than for White communities, and this is especially true for reductions in violent crime. In addition, the more disadvantaged the community, the larger the negative association between lending and both violent and property crime.

Segregation, Racial Structure, and Neighborhood Violent Crime

Drawing on structural racism and urban disadvantage approaches, this article posits a broad influence of citywide racial residential segregation on levels of violent crime across all urban neighborhoods regardless of their racial/ethnic composition. Multilevel models based on data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study for 7,622 neighborhoods in 79 cities throughout the United States reveal that segregation is positively associated with violent crime for white and various types of nonwhite neighborhoods. Nonetheless, there is a lack of parity in violence across these types of communities reflecting the larger racialized social system in which whites are able to use their privileged position to reside in the most advantaged neighborhoods, while African-Americans and Latinos live in the most disadvantaged urban communities and therefore bear the brunt of urban criminal violence.