Midterm exam prep

Demonic perspective of crime

Criminals are possessed by evil spirits; give into the temptations of evil forces: devil made me do it

Classical perspective

Rational, self-interested individuals commmit crimes when there is insufficient deterrence

Lombroso’s biological determinism

Criminals not normal, it is the innate characteristics is what explains people’s criminal behavior

What crime is focused on (in this class)

Street crimes; homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, MVT

Neighborhood/community

Small physical area embedded within a larger area in which people inhabit dwellings; a collective life that emerges from the social networks that arise among the residents and sets of institutional arrangements that overlap these networks; some some tradition of identity and continuity over time

Park and Burgess

Likened growth of a city to ecological competition. Some areas of chicago were socially disorganized, wheras some where socially organized

Concentric Zone Model (Park and Burgess)

1. Centric busiess district

2. Transitional zone: deteriorated housing, factories, abandoned buildings

3. Working class zone: single family tenements

4. Residential zone: single family homes, yards/garages

5. Commuter zone: suburbs

transition zone

cheap but overcrowded housing; population turnover, physical decay/disorder, poverty, limited education, heterogeneous population

Shaw and McKay

Applied concentric zone model to the study of delinquency. delinquency rates were negatively correlated with distance from the central business district. highest rate of delinquency was found in the zone of transition. this was irrespective of the different groups of people who inhabited the zone

Sampson and Groves

First formal test of social disorganization. considered community level measures of neighborhoods and the mediating dimensions of social disorganization, and determined how both sets of factors influenced neighborhood crime rates. these dimensions explained the effects of community structural characteristics on crime rates. strong empirical evidence

Frequency of social ties

Routine interactions between residents increase informal social control

Content of social ties

Interpersonal relationships characterized by trusts, emotional attachment, and reciprocity make it easier to combat crime if/when crime becomes problem in the neighborhood

Network Density

The ratio of the number of edges in the network over the total number of possible edges between all pairs of nodes

Network density equation

Actual Connections/Potential connections

Potential connections equation

N * (n-1)/2