Synopsis Flashcards
Readings: Does Place Matter?
o Weatherburn: What causes crime? Crime prone areas, state dependence argument over persistent heterogeneity
o The Chicago School, three factors of disorganization within communities
• residential instability
o Soothill 4 paradigms, Geographic segragation
• The focus here is that criminal behaviour is linked to localities/neighborhoods and only to a lesser extent linked to individual characteristics
• Focuses on community crime prevention
Krivo and Peterson
• Segregation, Racial Structure, and Neighborhood Violent Crime
• Author(s): Lauren J. Krivo, Ruth D. Peterson and Danielle C. Kuhl
o Studied relationship between black segregation and black homicide in 125 central cities
o Found Black-white segregation by far the most important variable in explaining intercity variation in the black murder rate
o Considered other factors (income inequality, poverty, education), and effect of segregation was 2.5x that of the next closest factor
o Chart: Neighborhood Violent Crime
• Also looked at neighborhoods with different racial makeups and levels of segregation and found
o Chart: Race and Neighborhood disadvantage
• Most disadvantaged white neighborhood in highly segregated city has violent crime rate of 2.9 per 1,000
• Lower than level of violence in the least disadvantaged black areas in highly segregated cities
Massey
o The experiment examines what happens to the geographic concentration of poverty when this shift in black poverty rates occurs under different conditions of class and racial segregation.
o Chart: Poor Whites
o Chart Poor Blacks
o Segregation and Poverty linked heavily, as well as rising crime
o Segregation concentrates poverty geographically within poor black communities, which concentrates crime
o As a result of the lower rate of neighborhood poverty, therefore, poor whites experience significantly lower crime rates by imposing racial segregation, because crime follows poverty.
o Creates ecological niche characterized by a high level of violence
o Niche of Violence, Great chances of victimization, those people must adapt to their environments, get respect through violence and gang affiliation
Is Jim Crow Over?
o According to Massey, Degree of segregation between whites and blacks across city boundaries rose steadily after 1950
• Between 1950-1980 level of black/white segregation increased 40% 12228
o Blacks lose homes high rates today
Comparison to Canada: blacks
o overrepresented within CJS but not as high, not as much research
o 2001, 45% of Canadian Blacks were born in Canada,
o different relationship of segregation
Comparison to Canada: Aboriginals
high violent crime
15% of federal incarcerated population
less than 3% of population
