Gang Behavior and the Control of Crime in the U.S. Inner City

在过去的三十年里，美国市中心的犯罪率迅速上升。在此期间，帮派行为被认为已经发生了变化，帮派越来越多地参与到赚钱的追求中，特别是在毒品销售中。在黑帮横行的社区，警察的控制水平也在恶化。这项研究将利用最近的社会学发现来模拟犯罪和帮派行为。由此产生的理论将有助于理解犯罪的决定因素，并有助于评估旨在阻止美国内城恶化的政策。这个项目建立在Martin Sanchez Jankowski最近重要的社会学研究的基础上，该研究提供了三个美国城市青少年帮派活动的详细描述。帮派被描绘成社区民兵，他们的社区容忍他们的罪行，以换取他们保护自己免受外来者的掠夺。相比之下，加里·贝克尔（Gary Becker）提出的流行的犯罪经济理论忽视了社区在决定犯罪活动水平方面的作用。这项研究将需要修改现行的犯罪经济理论，以包括社区的关键作用。犯罪不仅仅是由于罪犯个人的行为，而且是由于社会不与警察合作以及警察对犯罪活动失去控制。该理论预测，在足够富裕的社区，犯罪不会得到回报；然而，在较贫穷的社区，犯罪会得到回报，警察会失去控制，因为社区不会合作。尽管如此，警察的监测和法律处罚仍然影响着犯罪活动。犯罪在很大程度上取决于社区从保护邻里帮派转向帮助警方的临界点。开发了一个模型来分析其他的犯罪控制措施，并扩大研究范围，以研究犯罪与其他城市内部问题之间的相互关系，如工作的消失、无家可归者的增加和家庭关系的破裂。

During the last thirty years, there has been a burgeoning of crime in U.S. inner city neighborhoods. Over this period, gang behavior is believed to have changed, with gangs becoming more intensely involved in income earning pursuits, especially in the sale of drugs. The level of police control in gang ridden neighborhoods has also deteriorated. This research will use recent sociological findings to model crime and gang behavior. The resulting theory will be useful in understanding the determinants of crime and in evaluating policies geared to halt the deterioration of inner cites in the United States. This project builds on the important recent sociological study by Martin Sanchez Jankowski, which provides a detailed portrait of the operation of teenage gangs in three U.S. cities. Gangs are portrayed as neighborhood militia, whose communities forbear their crimes in return for protection they afford against the depredation of outsiders. In contrast, the prevailing economic theory of crime, due to Gary Becker, ignores the role of the community in determining the level of criminal activity. This research will entail modifying the prevailing economic theory of crime to include the critical role of the community. Crime is not only due to the behavior of individual offenders, but also to the community's noncooperation with the police and the police's attendant loss of control of criminal activity. The theory predicts that in neighborhoods which are sufficiently rich, crime will not pay; in poorer neighborhoods, however, crime will pay, and the police will lose control in the sense that the community will not cooperate. Nevertheless, police monitoring and legal penalties still affect criminal activity. Crime is largely determined by the threshold at which the community will switch from protecting their neighborhood gangs to helping the police. A model is developed to analyze alternative crime control measures and to expand the research to study the interrelationships among crime and other inner city problems such as the disappearance of jobs, increased homelessness and the breakdown in family relations.