Lyndsay N. Boggess

The spatial context of the disorder–crime relationship in a study of Reno neighborhoods

This study extends the current research on the relationship between neighborhood disorder and violent crime rates by incorporating spatial effects and the reciprocal relationship between disorder and violent crime. In particular, we test for both the potential effect of disorder on violence as well as how changes in violent crime rates can impact neighborhood levels of disorder. We control for a variety of factors related to social disorganization theory that can lead to crime and potentially disorder. In order to disentangle these relationships, we use a cross-lagged auto-regressive structural equation model and a unique dataset comprised of calls for police service and reported incidents for 117 neighborhoods in Reno, NV. We find that higher rates of disorder lead to significant, but modest, increases in violent crime, but only aggravated assaults lead to increases in disorder. These effects hold true above and beyond the effect of social disorganization and the influence of spatially proximate neighborhoods.

Do medical marijuana centers behave like locally undesirable land uses? Implications for the geography of health and environmental justice

As of 2013, medical marijuana is legal in 20 US States and the District of Columbia, but few studies have investigated the impact of the retail centers that sell the drug. We draw upon the social construction literature to frame our research and help us determine whether medical marijuana centers in Denver, Colorado, are considered locally undesirable land uses (LULUs). The geography of health and environmental justice frameworks lead us to hypothesize that marijuana centers are more likely to be opened in Hispanic, Black, and poor neighborhoods than in non-Hispanic White and affluent neighborhoods. We also hypothesize that marijuana centers will tend to increase the minority composition and poverty of the neighborhoods in which they are located. Contrary to expectations, we find no empirical support for these two hypotheses. Instead, results suggest that marijuana centers are likely to be situated in neighborhoods with higher crime rates and more retail employment. Thus, despite the view by many planners and law enforcement officials that these centers are problematic, they do not take on LULU characteristics in siting and demographic changes. This finding, while limited to Denver, has important implications for policymakers who are considering similar marijuana policies.

Race, Probation Violations, and Structured Secure Detention Decision Making in Three Jurisdictions:

The relationships between race and probation violations with preadjudication secure detention decision and detention hearings are examined in three jurisdictions in a Midwestern state that use a detention screening instrument. Interpretations of consensus theory and the racial or symbolic threat thesis with an emphasis on race stereotyping serve as the theoretical background for the study. The results reveal race to be influential in detention decisions in one jurisdiction, while involvement in probation violations is associated with the initial detention decision in all three jurisdictions. Implications for future research and for assessing whether the structuring of detention decision-making results in greater equality in detention proceedings for minority youth relative to White youth are discussed.

The Spatial Dimensions of Gentrification and the Consequences for Neighborhood Crime

This study examines neighborhood economic improvement, what is occurring in nearby neighborhoods, and the consequences for neighborhood crime rates. Negative binomial regression models are estimated to explain the relationship between the increase in average home values (a component of gentrification) and crime in Los Angeles between 1990 and 2000. We find that the spatial context is important, as gentrifying neighborhoods located on the “frontier” of the gentrification process have significantly more aggravated assaults than gentrifying neighborhoods surrounded by neighborhoods also undergoing improvement. Furthermore, this effect is stronger in neighborhoods that began the decade with the highest average home values. Our findings indicate that the extent to which neighborhoods are more or less embedded in a larger process of economic improvement, and where the neighborhood is at in the economic development process, has differential effects on neighborhood crime.

Does crime drive housing sales? Evidence from Los Angeles

Crime presents a threat to the residential stability of neighborhoods, and researchers often attempt to measure this indirect cost of crime in terms of the impact on housing values. Some studies have found that violent crime leads to lower home prices, but the associations found between property crime and home values have been more ambiguous. This paper hypothesizes that price-based models likely underestimate the true costs of crime because such models rely on transactions to estimate prices. However, if crime inhibits sales, price indices relying on sales may provide inaccurate measures of changes in housing demand in markets characterized by very low rates of home sales. Similarly, price may be a poor indicator of crime-induced shifts in demand in markets characterized by elastic supply. To address this, we measure the impact of violent, property, and overall crime and changes in crime on the rate of housing transactions across Los Angeles neighborhoods between 1993 and 1997.The results indicate both higher vacancy rates and higher levels of crime in the previous year related to higher rates of housing transactions. The effect of crime inhibiting sales appears primarily due to additional violent crime in neighborhoods with high levels of vacancies and crime.

Relative Difference and Burglary Location Can Ecological Characteristics of a Burglar’s Home Neighborhood Predict Offense Location?

Objectives: Neighborhood characteristics predict burglary targets, but target attractiveness may be colored by the conditions in which a potential offender resides. We test whether relative differences in concentrated disadvantage, racial/ethnic composition, and ethnic heterogeneity influence where burglars offend, controlling for distance. From a relative deprivation perspective, economically advantaged areas make more attractive targets to burglars residing in disadvantage neighborhoods, but a social disorganization perspective predicts areas lower in social cohesion are most attractive, which may be neighborhoods with greater disadvantage. Methods: Drawing upon a unique sample of cleared burglaries in the City of Tampa, Florida from 2000 to 2012, we utilize discrete choice modeling to predict burglar offense destination. Results: Offenders target neighborhoods that are geographically proximate or ecologically similar to their own. When accounting for relative differences, burglars from all neighborhood types are more likely to target highly disadvantaged or heterogeneous neighborhoods. Conclusions: Burglars generally select targets that are similar to their residence. However, when suspects do discriminate, there is evidence that they target neighborhoods that are worse off relative to their own on characteristics such as residential instability, disadvantage, racial composition, and racial/ethnic diversity. These neighborhoods are associated with lower social control and lower risk of detection.

It Is Not Always Black and White : An Examination of Black and Latino Intergroup Violence

Criminological research has consistently found evidence that residential instability leads to increases in violent crime, but little research assesses whether a specific type of residential turnover—racial and ethnic succession—impacts who is involved in the violent crime event. The purpose of this study is to investigate the consequences of Black to Latino transition in a disadvantaged area of Los Angeles and, importantly, to examine the impact of racial change on intragroup and intergroup youth violence. The author utilizes structural equation modeling to estimate a series of four simultaneous equations testing the rates of Black on Black, Black on Latino, Latino on Latino, and Latino on Black-aggravated assaults and robberies between 2000 and 2006. Since many theories of intergroup violence cite the economic differential between groups as a motivating factor, the author incorporates the ratio of Black to Latino median household income as a predicative factor. The author finds some evidence that racial/ethnic change leads to increased violence, but only for within-group robberies, and that racial/ethnic change is not a significant predictor of intergroup violence. Contrary to theoretical expectation, income inequality is not a significant predictor of changes in intergroup violence.

The Impact of Structural Disadvantage on the Gender-Gap and Sex-Specific Rates of Nonlethal Violent Victimization

This study examined the gendered impact of structural disadvantage and economic inequality on two forms of nonlethal victimization (assault and robbery). Compared with research on the gendered impact of structural disadvantage on perpetration, few studies have examined the differential susceptibility of men and women’s risk of victimization. We use data from the City of Los Angeles (2001-2007) to examine the relative influence of neighborhood characteristics on both the gender gap in victimization as well as sex-specific measures of assault and robbery victimization. In general, we largely find that neighborhood disadvantage and economic inequality do little to explain the gender gap in victimization; however, structure plays a more significant role in understanding sex-specific victimization rates, but the relationship varies by crime type.

Racial and Ethnic Change and Serious Student Offending in Los Angeles Middle and High Schools

This study assesses the relationship between racial and ethnic change and change in crime in a different type of community—schools. Like neighborhoods, some schools are perpetually more dangerous than others despite turnover. This study investigates how change in the racial and ethnic composition of school enrollment plays a role in school-level crime. In addition, because schools are located within a community context, this study incorporates spatial context and includes information on crime and residential change in the neighborhood surrounding the school. Using a series of negative binomial regression models assessing the influence of changes in school-specific and local community factors on serious school offending (assaults, batteries, robberies, and property offenses that occurred on campus) over time, the findings reveal that that the relationship between school-level racial and ethnic change is moderated by the community-level changes, but that the relationship is specific to school type and contrary to theoretical expectation.

Sex, Race, and Place: Taking an Intersectional Approach to Understanding Neighborhood-Level Violent Crime across Race and Sex

Objectives: We draw upon theories of social disorganization, strain, and subculture of violence to examine how sex and race/ethnicity intersect to inform nonlethal violent offending at the macrolevel. Methods: Using neighborhood-level incidents, we examine (1) the structural correlates of male and female nonlethal violence and (2) whether ecological conditions have variable impacts on the prevalence of White, Black, and Latino male and female offenses above and beyond differential exposure to disadvantage. We use multivariate negative binomial regression within a structural equation modeling framework which allows for the examination of the same set of indicator variables on more than one dependent variable simultaneously while accounting for covariance between the dependent variables. Results: We find few significant differences in the salience of disadvantage on female and male violence across race and ethnicity although some differences emerge for White men and women. Structural factors are largely sex invariant within race and ethnicity. Conclusions: Despite expectations that disadvantage would have differential effects across sex and race/ethnicity, we uncover only minor differences. This suggests that structural effects are more invariant than variant across subgroups and highlights the importance of investigating both similarities and differences when examining neighborhood structure, intersectionality, and criminal behavior.