Communities and Crime

An Enduring American Challenge

Pamela Wilcox, Francis T. Cullen, Ben Feldmeyer

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781592139743, 9781592139736
• eBook ISBN: 9781592139750
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Criminologie

Social scientists have long argued over the links between crime and place. The authors of Communities and Crime provide an intellectual history that traces how varying images of community have evolved over time and influenced criminological thinking and criminal justice policy.

The authors outline the major ideas that have shaped the development of theory, research, and policy in the area of communities and crime. Each chapter examines the problem of the community through a defining critical or theoretical lens: the community as social disorganization; as a system of associations; as a symptom of larger structural forces; as a result of criminal subcultures; as a broken window; as crime opportunity; and as a site of resilience. 

Focusing on these changing images of community, the empirical adequacy of these images, and how they have resulted in concrete programs to reduce crime, Communities and Crime theorizes about and reflects upon why some neighborhoods produce so much crime. The result is a tour of the dominant theories of place in social science today.

Table of contents

• Contents
• 1. Images of Community in Criminological Thought
• 2. Community as Socially Disorganized
• 3. Community as a System
• 4. Community as the Truly Disadvantaged
• 5. Community as a Criminal Culture
• 6. Community as a Broken Window
• 7. Community as Criminal Opportunity
• 8. Community as Collective Efficacy
• 9. Communities and Crime: Looking Ahead
• References
• Index