Although public housing in the United States is often portrayed as crime ridden, little information from official statistics is available to support this impression. Furthermore, only a handful of criminologists have done empirical research on crime in public housing, and this research has tended to focus on large public housing authorities (PHAs) in big cities. Furnishing the reader with an array of facts about public housing (e.g., roughly 90% of PHAs have fewer than 500 units), this article makes the case that criminologists are woefully uninformed about the nature of the public housing universe and its crime problems.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abt Associates
, Inc. 1994. Public Housing Drug Elimination Project Resource Document: Final Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
2.
Annan, Sampson O.
and Wesley G. Skogan. 1993. Drug Enforcement in Public Housing: Signs of Success in Denver. Washington, DC: The Police Foundation.
3.
Brill, William and Associates
. 1975. Victimization, Fear of Crime, and Altered Behavior: A Profile of the Crime Problem in Four Housing Projects in Boston. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
4.
Brill, William and Associates
. 1976. Victimization, Fear of Crime, and Altered Behavior: A Profile of the Crime Problem in William Nickerson Jr. Gardens, Los Angeles, California. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
5.
Brill, William and Associates
. 1977a. Victimization, Fear of Crime, and Altered Behavior: A Profile of the Crime Problem in Capper Dwellings, Washington, D.C. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
6.
Brill, William and Associates
. 1977b. Victimization, Fear of Crime, and Altered Behavior: A Profile of the Crime Problem in Murphy Homes, Baltimore, Maryland. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
7.
Brill, William and Associates
. 1977c. Victimization, Fear of Crime, and Altered Behavior: A Profile of the Crime Problem in Scott/Carver Homes, Dade County, Florida. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
8.
Buracker, Carroll and Associates, Inc
. 1994. Policing in Public Housing: Assessment & Blueprint. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
9.
Buracker, Carroll and Associates, Inc
. 1995. “Document for Public Housing Authorities to Negotiate Agreements for Law Enforcement Services: A Model Contract.” In FY 1995 Application Kit for the Public and Indian Housing Drug Elimination Grant Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
10.
Bureau of Justice Statistics
. 1993. Highlights From 20 Years of Surveying Crime Victims: The National Crime Victimization Survey, 1973-1992. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
11.
Casey, Connie H.
1996. Characteristics of HUD-Assisted Renters and Their Units in 1991. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
12.
Chicago Community Policing Evaluation Consortium
. 1995. Community Policing in Chicago, Year Two: An Interim Report. Chicago: Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority.
13.
Dunworth, Terence
and Aaron Saiger. 1993. Drugs and Crime in Public Housing: A Three-City Analysis. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
14.
Eve, Susan B.1985. “Criminal Victimization and Fear of Crime Among the Non-Institutionalized Elderly in the United States: A Critique of the Empirical Research Literature.”Victimology10(1):397-408.
15.
Farley, John E.1982. “Has Public Housing Gotten a Bum Rap? The Incidence of Crime in St. Louis Public Housing Developments.”Environment and Behavior14:443-477.
16.
Feins, Judith D.
, Sally R. Merrill, Nandinee Kutty, Kathleen Heintz, and Gretchen P. Locke. 1994. Revised Methods of Providing Federal Funds for Public Housing Agencies: Final Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
17.
Goering, John
, Ali Kamely, and Todd Richardson. 1994. The Location and Racial Composition of Public Housing in the United States. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
18.
Greenberg, Reuben M.1992. “Less Bang-Bang for the Buck.”Policy Review (Winter):56-60.
19.
Gugliotta, Guy
. 1995. “Newark Housing Authority Raises Its HUD Rating as It Razes High-Rises.”The Washington Post, September 2, p. A9.
20.
Harrell, Adele
and Caterina Gouvis. 1994. Predicting Neighborhood Risk of Crime. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
21.
Hochschild, Jennifer L.1989. “Equal Opportunity of the Estranged Poor.”The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science501:143-155.
22.
Holzman, Harold R.
and Lanny Piper. 1995. “Measuring Crime in Public Housing: Methodological Issues and Research Strategies.” Paper presented at the 1995 meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Boston, November.
23.
Holzman, Harold R.
, Tarl R. Kudrick, and Kenneth P. Voytek. 1996. “Revisiting the Relationship Between Crime and Architectural Design: An Analysis of Data From HUD's 1994 Survey of Public Housing Residents.”Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research2.
24.
Keyes, Langley C.
1992. Strategies and Saints: Fighting Drugs in Subsidized Housing. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press.
25.
Massey, Douglas S.
and Nancy Denton. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Boston: Harvard University Press.
26.
Massey, Douglas S.
and Shawn M. Kanaiaupuni. 1993. “Public Housing and the Concentration of Poverty.”Social Science Quarterly74:109-122.
27.
Merry, Sally E.1981a. “Defensible Space Undefended: Social Factors in Crime Control Through Environmental Design.”Urban Affairs Quarterly16:397-422.
28.
Merry, Sally E.
1981b. Urban Danger: Life in a Neighborhood of Strangers. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
29.
Nathan, Richard P.1989. Institutional Change and the Challenge of the Underclass. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science501:170-181.
30.
National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing
. 1992. The Final Report of the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing: A Report to the Congress and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
31.
Newman, Oscar
. 1972. Defensible Space: Crime Prevention Through Urban Design. New York: Macmillan.
32.
Newman, Oscar
and Karen A. Franck. 1980. Factors Influencing Crime and Instability in Urban Housing Developments. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
33.
Policy Studies Division
. 1994a. Small Neighborhood Concentrations of Subsidized Housing: The Case of Washington Highlands [Draft]. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
34.
Policy Studies Division
. 1994b. The Hope VI Demonstration: Strategies for Effecting Urban Revitalization. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
35.
Popkin, Susan J.
, Lynn M. Olson, Arthur J. Lurigio, Victoria E. Gwiasda, and Ruth G. Carter. 1995. “Sweeping Out Drugs and Crime: Residents' Views of the Chicago Housing Authority's Public Housing Drug Elimination Program.”Crime & Delinquency41:73-99.
36.
President's Commission on Housing
. 1982. The Report of the President's Commission on Housing. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
37.
Research Triangle Institute, Inc.
1994. Survey of Public Housing Residents: Crime and Crime Prevention in Public Housing. Research Triangle Park, NC: Research Triangle Institute.
38.
Roncek, Dennis W.
, Ralph Bell, and Jeffrey M. A. Francik. 1981. “Housing Projects and Crime.”Social Problems29:151-166.
39.
Rouse, Victor
and Herb Rubenstein. 1978. Crime in Public Housing: A Review of Major Issues and Selected Crime Reduction Strategies. Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research.
40.
Skogan, Wesley G.
and Sampson O. Annan. 1994. “Drugs in Public Housing: Toward an Effective Police Response.” In Drugs and Crime: Evaluating Public Police Initiatives, edited by D. MacKenzie and C. Uchida. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
41.
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
. 1985. Final Report of the Evaluation of the Urban Initiatives Anti-Crime Demonstration. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
42.
Vergara, Camilo J.1989. “Hell in a Very Tall Place.”Atlantic Monthly, September, pp. 72-78.
43.
Webster, Barbara
and Edward F. Connors. 1992. The Police, Drugs, and Public Housing. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice.
44.
Weisel, Deborah L.
1990. Tackling Drug Problems in Public Housing: A Guide for Police. Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum.
