Seth L. Feinberg

The Paradox of Social Organization: Networks, Collective Efficacy, and Violent Crime in Urban Neighborhoods

Theories of neighborhood social organization and crime have not effectively explained the existence of socially organized, high-crime neighborhoods. We describe and test an alternative theory of urban violence that highlights the tension between two dimensions of social organization — social networks (ties and exchange between neighborhood residents) and collective efficacy (mutual trust and solidarity combined with expectations for prosocial action) — in the regulation of neighborhood crime. We argue that while social networks may contribute to neighborhood collective efficacy, they also provide a source of social capital for offenders, potentially diminishing the regulatory effectiveness of collective efficacy. This negotiated coexistence model is considered alongside two competing theories of neighborhood crime drawn from the systemic and cultural transmission perspectives. We test these theories using 1990 census data, the 1994-95 Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Community Survey, and 1995-97 Chicago Homicide Data. Consistent with the negotiated coexistence approach, spatial lag models of violent victimization and the 1995-97 log homicide rate indicate that the regulatory effects of collective efficacy on violence are substantially reduced in neighborhoods characterized by high levels of network interaction and reciprocated exchange.

Neighborhood Social Processes, Physical Conditions, and Disaster-Related Mortality: The Case of the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave

The authors draw on Klinenbergs (2002) ethnography and recent neighborhood theory to explain community-level variation in mortality during the July 1995 Chicago heat wave. They examine the impact of neighborhood structural disadvantage on heat wave mortality and consider three possible intervening mechanisms: social network interaction, collective efficacy, and commercial conditions. Combining Census and mortality data with the 1995 Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Community Survey and Systematic Social Observation, the authors estimate hierarchical Poisson models of death rates both during the 1995 heat wave and comparable, temporally proximate July weeks (1990-94, 1996). They find that neighborhood affluence was negatively associated with heat wave mortality. Consistent with Klinenbergs ethnographic study of the Chicago heat wave, commercial decline was positively associated with heat wave mortality and explains the affluence effect. Where commercial decline was low, neighborhoods were largely protected from heat-related mortality. Although social network interaction and collective efficacy did not influence heat wave mortality, collective efficacy was negatively associated with mortality during comparable July weeks (when no heat wave occurred). Unequal distribution of community-based resources had important implications for geographic differences in survival rates during the Chicago heat wave, and may be relevant for other disasters.

Media effects: The influence of local newspaper coverage on municipal police size

This paper explores the influence that local newspaper coverage exerts on the relative size of municipal police agencies. It is hypothesized that the volume of law enforcement news stories affects sworn personnel allocations. Regression results based on 63 large U.S. cities show that media coverage does affect police employment levels. A content analysis of selected newspapers suggests that crime-related stories are prominently featured and tend to portray the police as effective in responding to criminal incidents. Implications for future research concerning media influence and criminal justice policy-making are offered.

Senseless messaging: advertising images of illegal driving and deviant behavior

We review messaging within automobile advertisements that normalizes and glamorizes reckless driving behavior. Our content analysis of video advertisements illustrates the use of the automobile in ways that are both illegal and dangerous. Advertisements with hazardous driving images occur more often in our sample than all other types of marketing strategies. Messages include deviance from distributional norms (atypical vehicle use); illegal or immoral driving behaviors that put others at risk; and questionable judgments on the part of manufacturers that use advertisement imagery to increase sales while assuming little of the public costs associated with accidents, injuries, and preventable fatalities on roadways.

Simpsonology: There's a Little Bit of Springfield in All of Us

topics that attract the interest of students. It is here where I am most excited to see changes in a second edition of Rohall et al.’s text. As it stands, there is little description in the text that introduces students to controversy, to broad implications for society, or to topics that pique the curiosity of college students. Take the chapter on deviance, for example. Deviance is a topic to which many students are intrinsically attracted. Sociologists have made substantial contributions to our understanding of the topic, engaging in qualitative research on nudists, prostitutes, gangs, religious cults, and more. Little reference is made to any of this in the chapter. Indeed, Merton’s strain theory, covered in most Introduction to Sociology texts, receives the most attention. At least include a discussion of Cohen’s subcultural strain theory, which focuses more on collective, rather than individual, motivations for deviance. “Discussion questions” are provided for students at the end of each chapter, but these can be much improved. Is the question, “How would you define society from your personal perspective?” (p. 25) really going to engage a student into the richness of the field? Connections to broader issues need to be made explicit for students. Examples abound. Irving Janus was brilliant in tying his albeit psychologically biased theory of groupthink (i.e. any social process that transcends individual commonsense must necessarily be held suspect) to events like the Bay of Pigs fiasco or the Challenger disaster. As an undergraduate student, I recall how engaged I became with the Milgram studies once it was made clear that the experiments helped to inform an understanding of the atrocities committed by Nazi concentration camp guards. Social psychology is relevant. The field is rife with examples of research with practical implications and, in some cases, the ability to predict human behavior. Indeed, the way in which marketers make use of social psychological information to manipulate consumers into buying borders on the demonic. AsK students how they feel about this. Long-known social psychological processes are used by the military and religious cults alike to resocialize new recruits into the value system of the dominant group. Is it right to use these techniques in a society that prides itself on freedom and the right to self-determination for individuals? Similarly, the parallels to understanding racism, sexism, or Israeli-Palestinian relations are all too clear when reviewing the findings of the Robber’s Cave experiment. Why not include discussions such as these in the text? Rohall et al. are no slouches. They know their stuff. They have done a great service to the field of sociology by creating a social psychological text that is uniquely—sociological. Add a little juice and we’ll have a cocktail that will knock your socks off.