Fundamentals of Crime Mapping

Social Disorganization and Social Efficacy

As will be emphasized throughout this text, it is crucial that crime maps and analyses convey the whole picture. Maps created without providing the accompanying environmental and social context are limited in their usefulness

Warning-Warning “Will Robinson”

Cesare Beccaria published his classic essay “On Crimes and Punishments” (1764) \◦ Free Will◦ Utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham put forth his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. (1789) ◦ 4 objectives to prevent crime through punishment

The primary goal is the prevention of crime. When punishment does not prevent crime, it must persuade

the offender to choose to commit a less serious offense. Punishment must persuade future offenders to use the least

amount of force in committing a crime. It must prevent crime at a cost-effective rate.

Classical School of Criminology

late 19th century Scientific method heavily influenced Primary elements:

◦ Human behavior is influenced by biology, psychology, and to some extent the larger environment (social positivists)

◦ Second, the only way criminologists can learn about human behavior and solve social problems is to embrace the scientific method

Deterministic view Sociological Criminologists emerging

Positivist School of Criminology

France Quetelet and Guerry Crime in France was unevenly distributed

across people and places If crime was randomly distributed, there

would be little need for crime mapping

Cartographic School of Criminology

Developed Hypotheses and constructed theoretical models about how crime was related to and caused by various social and environmental factors

Park argued that cities grew from the inside out through a process of invasion, dominance, and succession

Burgess (1925), He argued that cities grow outward from the center in concentric circles starting with the inner loop (Concentric zone theory)◦ loop immediately surrounding the business district (zone

in transition) would experience the highest levels of social disorganization

Chicago School of Criminology

Social disorganization◦ high rates of residential turnover◦ a heterogeneous population◦ high levels of poverty

Differential Association Theory◦ juveniles who lived in these disorganized

neighborhoods learned values and techniques favorable to committing crime via their peer associations

◦ some neighborhoods are not disorganized but rather organized around different values

Chicago School of Criminology

Social Efficacy Recent research that examined social

disorganization has determined that crime is not necessarily the problem but rather a symptom of inadequate social networks (or lack of collective efficacy) that exist in these neighborhoods

Programs designed to “weed” crime out of an area by police sweeps and neighborhood clean-up programs ultimately fail in the long run if they do not address the notion of collective, or social, efficacy

Chicago School of Criminology

Community-based policing Wilson and Kelling’s “Broken Windows” piece,

published in 1982 Based on an experiment conducted by Stanford

psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1969 When the “no one cares” cue is sent out, crime can

occur in any neighborhood◦ Bronx and Palo Alto,CA car vandalism experiment

Proponents of community policing maintain that a law enforcement concentration on “minor disorders” will, in turn, “lead to a reduction in serious crime” (Mastrofski, 1988, p. 48).

Broken Windows Theory

Crime fuse◦ society allows problems such as crime to exist in

certain areas and not others Not quickly or easily fixed by the criminal

justice system Demand community participation

Broken Windows Theory

Ecological fallacy◦ People who have high risks for being criminals but do not

despite their neighborhood or sociological environment Approaches do not explain all crime types Misidentifying the causal order of the relationship

between variables◦ Crime and social disorder both have to be addressed to

cause change Multicollinearity

◦ Variables used have concepts they are measuring overlap Imprecise measurements

◦ Can’t always measure what you want to measure, and use something else to “proxy” for it

Problems with Chicago School

Although there is no single criminological theory that can explain crime, we still need to make use of the research and knowledge that has been developed and focus our crime analysis on these theories when analyzing crime and try and avoid mistakes◦ by being “initimate” with our data, ◦ and know how to provide analysis work products

that effectively help, rather than hinder decision making.

Conclusion