While the systemic model that today's theories of social disorganization are based on acknowledges that neighborhood-based institutions may vary in their ability to contribute to effective social control, relatively little attention has been given to their role in understanding neighborhood rates of crime. At the same time, there is contradictory evidence about the role of social networks, which have been the focus of much research attention. This article builds upon past work to present a model of neighborhood-based institutional social control to address this lack of attention. The model centers on a conceptualization of institutional strength that distinguishes between the dimensions of institutional strength, and the causes and effects of variation in institutional strength.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Agnew, Robert (1992) `Foundation for a General Strain Theory of Crime and Delinquency' , Criminology30(1): 47-87 .
2.
Agnew, Robert (1999) `A General Strain Theory of Community Differences in Crime Rates' , Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency36(2): 123-155 .
3.
Agnew, Robert (2001) `Building on the Foundation of General Strain Theory: Specifying the Types of Strain Most Likely to Lead to Crime and Delinquency' , Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency40(4): 43-72 .
4.
Anderson, Elijah (1999) Code of the Streets. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Ltd.
5.
Bellair, Paul (2000) `Informal Surveillance and Street Crime: A Complex Relationship' , Criminology38(1): 137-170 .
6.
Belle, Deborah (1987) `Gender Differences in the Social Moderators of Stress', in R. Barnett, Lois Beiner and G. Baruch (eds) Gender and Stress, pp. 257-277. New York: The Free Press .
7.
Birkbeck, C., L. Gabaldon and G. LaFree (1993) `Decision to Call the Police: A Comparative Study of the United States and Venezuela' , International Criminal Justice Review3: 25-43 .
8.
Bott, Elizabeth (1957) Family and Social Network: Roles, Norms and External Relationships in Ordinary Urban Families. London: Tavistock Publications Limited .
9.
Braithwaite, John (1989) Crime, Shame and Reintegration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
10.
Brown, Karin and Phillip Coulter (1983) `Subjective and Objective Measures of Police Service Delivery' , Public Administration Review43(1): 50-58 .
11.
Browning, Sandra and Liqun Cao (1992) `The Impact of Race on Criminal Justice Ideology' , Justice Quarterly9(4): 685-702 .
12.
Bursik, Robert J., Jr (1986) `Delinquency Rates as Sources of Ecological Change', in James Byrne and Robert Sampson (eds) The Social Ecology of Crime, pp. 63-73. New York: Springer-Verlag .
13.
Bursik, Robert J., Jr (1988) `Social Disorganization and Theories of Crime and Delinquency: Problems and Prospects' , Criminology26(4): 519-551 .
14.
Bursik, Robert J., Jr (1989) `Political Decision-Making and Ecological Models of Delinquency: Conflict and Consensus', in Steven Messner, Marvin Krohn and Allen Liska (eds) Theoretical Integration in the Study of Deviance and Crime, pp. 105-117. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press .
15.
Bursik, Robert J., Jr (1999) `The Informal Control of Crime through Neighborhood Networks' , Sociological Focus32(1): 85-97 .
16.
Bursik, Robert J., Jr and Harold Grasmick (1993) Neighborhoods and Crime: The Dimensions of Effective Community Control. San Francisco, CA: Lexington Books .
17.
Chamlin, Mitchell and John Cochran (1997) `Social Altruism and Crime' , Criminology 35(2): 203-228 .
18.
Cloward, Richard and Lloyd Ohlin (1960) Delinquency and Opportunity. New York: Free Press .
19.
Cohen, Albert (1955) Delinquent Boys. New York: The Free Press .
20.
Coleman, James (1990) Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press .
21.
Cullen, Francis (1994) `Social Support as an Organizing Concept for Criminology: Presidential Address to the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences' , Justice Quarterly11(4): 527-559 .
22.
Cullen, Francis, John Paul Wright and Mitchell Chamlin (1999) `Social Support and Social Reform: A Progressive Crime Control Agenda' , Crime and Delinquency 45(2): 188-207 .
23.
Fleury, R., C. Sullivan, D. Bybee and W. Davidson (1998) `Why Don't They Just Call the Cops? Reasons for Differential Police Contact among Women with Abusive Partners' , Violence and Victims13(4): 333-346 .
24.
Gainey, Randy, Peggy Peterson, Elizabeth Wells, J. David Hawkins and Richard Catalano (1995) `The Social Networks of Cocaine Users Seeking Treatment' , Addiction Research3(1): 17-32 .
25.
Granovetter, Mark (1973) `The Strength of Weak Ties' , American Journal of Sociology 78(6): 1360-1380 .
26.
Greenberg, Stephanie, William Rohe and Jay Williams (1982) Safe and Secure Neighborhoods: Physical Characteristics and Informal Territorial Control in High and Low Crime Neighborhoods. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice .
27.
Hagan, John (1997) `Crime and Capitalization: Toward a Developmental Theory of Street Crime', in Terence Thornberry (ed.) Developmental Theories of Crime and Delinquency, pp. 287-308. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers .
28.
Hagan, John and Celesta Albonetti (1982) `Race, Class and the Perception of Criminal Injustice in America' , American Journal of Sociology88(2): 329-355 .
29.
Hagan, John and Ruth Peterson (1995) `Criminal Inequalities in America: Patterns and Consequences', in John Hagan and Ruth Peterson (eds) Crime and Inequality, pp. 14-36. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press .
30.
Hannerz, Ulf (1969) Soulside. New York: Columbia University Press .
31.
Harris, Anthony (1977) `Sex and Theories of Deviance: Toward a Functional Theory of Deviant Type-Scripts' , American Sociological Review42(1): 3-16 .
32.
Henig, Jeffrey (1982) Neighborhood Mobilization: Redevelopment and Response. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press .
33.
Huckfeldt, Robert (1983) `Social Contexts, Social Networks, and Urban Neighborhoods: Environmental Constraints on Friendship Choice' , American Journal of Sociology 89(3): 651-669 .
34.
Hunter, Albert (1985) `Private, Parochial and Public School Orders: The Problem of Crime and Incivility in Urban Communities', in Gerald Suttles and M. Zald (eds) The Challenge of Social Control: Citizenship and Institution Building in Modern Society, pp. 230-242. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing .
35.
Jankowski, Martin Sanchez (1991) Islands in the Street: Gangs and Urban American Society. Berkley, CA: University of California Press .
36.
Janowitz, Morris (1967 [1951]) The Community Press in an Urban Setting. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .
37.
Jones, Bryan D., Saadia Greenberg and Joseph Drew (1980) Service Delivery in the City: Citizen Demand and Bureaucratic Rules. New York: Longman .
38.
Kasarda, John and Morris Janowitz (1974) `Community Attachment in Mass Society' , American Sociological Review39 (June): 328-339 .
39.
Kornhauser, Ruth (1978) Social Sources of Delinquency. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .
40.
Krohn, Marvin (1986) `The Web of Conformity: A Network Approach to the Explanation of Delinquent Behavior' , Social Problems33(6): 581-593 .
41.
Kuperan, K. and Jon Sutinen (1998) `Blue Water Crime: Deterrence, Legitimacy, and Compliance in Fisheries' , Law and Society Review32(2): 309-337 .
42.
LaFave, Wayne R. and Frank J. Remington (1965) Arrest: The Decision to Take a Suspect into Custody. Boston, MA: Little, Brown .
43.
LaFree, Gary (1998a) Losing Legitimacy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press .
44.
LaFree, Gary (1998b) `Social Institutions and the Crime “Bust” of the 1990s' , Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology88(4): 1325-1368 .
45.
Lin, Nan (1986) `Conceptualizing Social Support', in Nan Lin, A. Dean and W. Ensel (eds) Social Support, Life Events and Depression, pp. 17-30. N. Orlando, FL: Academic Press .
46.
Lin, Nan (2001) Social Capital. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press .
47.
Massey, Douglas (1990) `American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass' , American Journal of Sociology96(2): 329-357 .
48.
Merry, Sally Engle (1981) Urban Danger: Life in a Neighborhood of Strangers. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press .
49.
Merton, Robert (1938) `Social Structure and Anomie' , American Sociological Review3(5): 672-682 .
50.
Messner, Steven and Richard Rosenfeld (1994) Crime and the American Dream. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth .
51.
Messner, Steven and Richard Rosenfeld (2001) Crime and the American Dream (3rd edn). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth .
52.
Miller, Eleanor (1986) Street Woman. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press .
53.
Miller, Walter (1958) `Lower Class Culture as a Generating Milieu of Gang Delinquency' , Journal of Social Issues14(3): 5-19 .
54.
Miranda, Rowan and Ittipone Tunyavong (1994) `Patterned Inequality? Reexamining the Role of Distributive Politics in Urban Service Delivery' , Urban Affair Quarterly29(4): 509-535 .
55.
Morenoff, Jeffrey, Robert Sampson and Stephen Raudenbush (2001) `Neighborhood Inequality, Collective Efficacy, and the Spatial Dynamics of Urban Violence' , Criminology39(3): 517-560 .
56.
Myrdal, Gunnar (1944) An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. New York: Harper & Brothers .
57.
Nardulli, Peter F. and Jeffrey M. Stonecash (1981) Politics, Professionalism, and Urban Services: The Police. Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager, Gun & Hain .
58.
Newman, David (1995) Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press .
59.
Nightingale, Carl (1993) On the Edge: A History of Poor Black Children and the American Dream. New York: Basic Books .
60.
Page, Benjamin (1983) Who Gets What from the Government. Berkley, CA: University of California Press .
61.
Paternoster, Raymond, Robert Brame, Ronet Bachman and Lawrence Sherman (1997) `Do Fair Procedures Matter? The Effect of Procedural Justice on Spouse Assault' , Law and Society Review31(1): 163-204 .
62.
Pattillo, Mary (1998) `Sweet Mothers and Gangbangers: Managing Crime in a Black Middle-Class Neighborhood' , Social Forces76(3): 747-774 .
63.
Peterson, Ruth, Lauren Krivo and Mark Harris (2000) `Disadvantage and Neighborhood Violent Crime: Do Local Institutions Matter?' , Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency37(1): 31-63 .
64.
Rabrenovic, Gordana (1996) Community Builders: A Tale of Neighborhood Mobilization in Two Cities. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press .
Rasche, Christine (1988) `Minority Women and Domestic Violence: The Unique Dilemmas of Battered Women of Color' , Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice4(3): 150-171 .
67.
Rich, Richard C. (1982) Analyzing Urban-Service Distributions. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books .
68.
Rooney, Jim (1995) Organizing the South Bronx. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press .
69.
Rose, Dina and Todd Clear (1998) `Incarceration, Social Capital and Crime: Implications for Social Disorganization Theory' , Criminology36(3): 441-480 .
70.
Ross, Catherine, John Mirowsky and Shana Pribesh (2001) `Powerlessness and the Amplification of Threat: Neighborhood Disadvantage, Disorder and Mistrust' , American Sociological Review66 (August): 568-591 .
71.
Sampson, Robert (1986) `Neighborhood Family Structure and the Risk of Personal Victimization', James Byrne and Robert Sampson (eds) The Social Ecology of Crime, pp. 25-46. New York: Springer-Verlag .
72.
Sampson, Robert (1987) `Urban Black Violence: The Effect of Male Joblessness and Family Disruption' , American Journal of Sociology93(2): 348-382 .
73.
Sampson, Robert and W. Byron Groves (1989) `Community Structure and Crime: Testing Social Disorganization Theory' , American Journal of Sociology94(4): 774-802 .
74.
Sampson, Robert and Dawn Jeglum-Bartusch (1998) `Legal Cynicism and (Subcultural?) Tolerance of Deviance: The Neighborhood Context of Racial Differences' , Law and Society Review32(4): 777-804 .
75.
Sampson, Robert and Janet Lauritsen (1994) `Violent Victimization and Offending: Individual-, Situational- and Community-Level Risk Factors', in Albert Reiss and Jeffrey Roth (eds) Understanding and Preventing Violence, vol. 3, pp. 1-114. Washington, DC: National Academy Press .
76.
Sampson, Robert and Stephen Raudenbush (1999) `Systemic Social Observation of Public Spaces: A New Look at Disorder in Urban Neighborhoods' , American Journal of Sociology105(3): 603-651 .
77.
Sampson, Robert and William Julius Wilson (1995) `Toward a Theory of Race, Crime and Urban Inequality', in John Hagan and Ruth D. Peterson (eds) Crime and Inequality, pp. 37-54. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press .
78.
Sampson, Robert, Stephen Raudenbush and Felton Earls (1997) `Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy' , Science277(15): 918-924 .
79.
Shaw, Clifford and Henry McKay (1942) Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .
80.
Sherman, Lawrence (1993) `Defiance, Deterrence and Irrelevance: A Theory of the Criminal Sanction' , Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency30(4): 445-473 .
81.
Silver, Eric (2000) `Extending Social Disorganization Theory: A Multilevel Approach to the Study of Violence among Persons with Mental Illnesses' , Criminology 38(4): 1043-1074 .
82.
Simcha-Fagan, Ora and Joseph Schwartz (1986) `Neighborhood and Delinquency: An Assessment of Contextual Effects' , Criminology24(4): 667-703 .
83.
Skogan, Wesley (1989) `Communities, Crime and Neighborhood Organization' , Crime and Delinquency35(3): 437-457 .
84.
Skogan, Wesley (1990) Disorder and Decline. Berkley, CA: University of California Press .
85.
Smith, Douglas (1986) `The Neighborhood Context of Police Behavior', in Albert Reiss and Michael Tonry (eds) Communities and Crime, pp. 313-341. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .
86.
Stryker, S. (1968) `Identity Salience and Role Performance: The Relevance of Symbolic Interactionism Theory for Family Research' , Journal of Marriage and Family 30(4): 558-564 .
87.
Stryker, S. (1980) Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Version. Menlo Park, CA: The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company .
88.
Sullivan, Mercer (1989) Getting Paid: Youths Crime and Work in the Inner City. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press .
89.
Suttles, Gerald (1968) The Social Order of the Slum: Ethnicity and Territory in the Inner City. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .
90.
Taylor, Ralph (1997) `Social Order and Disorder of Street Blocks and Neighborhoods: Ecology, Microecology, and the Systemic Model of Social Disorganization' , Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency34(1): 113-155 .
91.
Taylor, Ralph, Stephen Gottfredson and Sidney Brower (1984) `Block Crime and Fear: Defensible Space, Local Social Ties and Territorial Functioning' , Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency21(4): 303-331 .
92.
Tumin, Melvin (1973) Patterns of Society. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Company .
93.
Tyler, Tom (1990) Why People Obey the Law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press .
94.
Tyler, Tom and Peter Degoey (1995) `Collective Restraint in Social Dilemmas: Procedural Justice and Social Identification Effects on Support for Authorities' , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology69(3): 482-497 .
95.
Valentine, Bettylou (1978) Hustling and Other Hard Work. New York: The Free Press .
96.
Velez, Maria (2001) `The Role of Public Social Control in Urban Neighborhoods: A Multilevel Analysis of Victimization Risk' , Criminology39(4): 837-866 .
97.
Venkatesh, Subhir Alladi (1997) `The Social Organization of Street Gang Activity in an Urban Ghetto' , American Journal of Sociology103(1): 82-111 .
98.
Veysey, Bonita and Stephen Messner (1999) `Further Testing of Social Disorganization Theory: An Elaboration of Sampson and Groves' “Community Structure and Crime” ` , Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency36(2): 156-174 .
99.
Warner, Barbara (1997) `Community Characteristics and the Recording of Crime: Police Recording of Citizens' Complaints of Burglary and Assault' , Justice Quarterly 14(4): 631-650 .
100.
Warner, Barbara and Pamela Rountree (1997) `Local Social Ties in a Community and Crime Model: Questioning the Systemic Nature of Informal Social Control' , Social Problems44(4): 520-536 .
101.
Williams, Oliver (1980) `Life-Style Values and Political Decentralization in Metropolitan Areas', in Harlan Hahn and Charles Levine (eds) Urban Politics, Past, Present, and Future, pp. 201-212. New York: Longman .
102.
Wilson, George and Roger Durham (2001) `Race, Class and Attitudes towards Crime Control' , Criminal Justice and Behavior28(3): 259-278 .
103.
Wilson, William J. (1987) The Truly Disadvantaged. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .
104.
Wilson, William J. (1996) When Work Disappears. New York: Knopf .
105.
Wright, Burton, John Weiss and Charles Unkovic (1975) Perspective: An Introduction to Sociology. Hinsdale, IL: The Dryden Press .
106.
Wright, John Paul and Frank Cullen (2001) `Parental Efficacy and Delinquent Behavior: Do Control and Support Matter?' , Criminology39(3): 677-706 .
107.
Zatz, Marjorie and Edwardo Portillos (2000) `Voice from the Barrio: Chicano/a Gangs, Families and Communities' , Criminology38(2): 369-402 .
