Pockets of crime : broken windows, collective efficacy, and the criminal point of view / Peter K.B. St. Jean ; with a foreword by Robert J. Sampson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

St. Jean, Peter K. B.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Crime.

Criminology.

Criminal behavior.

Neighborhoods--Social aspects.

Neighborhoods.

Neighborhoods--Psychological aspects.

Applied human geography.

Physical Description:

xviii, 278 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Summary:

Why, even in the same high-crime neighborhoods, do robbery, drug dealing, and assault occur much more frequently on some blocks than on others? One popular theory is that a weak sense of community among neighbors can create conditions more hospitable for criminals, and another proposes that physical decline-such as broken windows and boarded-up buildings-makes crime more Likely. But in this innovative study, Peter K. B. St. Jean argues that we cannot fully understand the impact of these factors without considering that, because urban space is unevenly developed, different kinds of crimes occur most often in locations that offer their perpetrators specific advantages.

Drawing on Chicago Police Department statistics and extensive interviews with both law-abiding citizens and criminals in one of the city's highest-crime areas, St. Jean demonstrates that drug dealers and robbers, for example, are primarily attracted to locations with businesses like liquor stores, fast food restaurants, and check-cashing outlets. By accounting for these important factors of spatial positioning-what St. Jean terms ecological disadvantages-he expands upon previous research to provide the most comprehensive explanation available of why crime occurs where it does.

Contents:

Introduction and overview

Explaining crime hotspots : overview and extensions of broken windows and collective efficacy theories

Here's the neighborhood : a video ethnographic tour of Grand Boulevard, 2000

Perceived sources of neighborhood disorder

Where's the dope at? the need to understand drug dealing from the ground up

"I want it, I see it, I take it" : the robbery hotspots

"That's the way we grew up" : the battery hotspots

What this all means : summary, conclusions, and implications

Appendix A: Methodological appendix

Appendix B: Recent trends in research on broken windows

Appendix C: Recent trends in research on collective efficacy.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-270) and index.

ISBN:

9780226774985

0226774988

9780226774992

0226774996

OCLC:

74987819

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description