Racial Heterogeneity, Neighborhood Controls, and Violence

这个项目考察了西雅图社区的种族、社区社会组织以及犯罪和暴力的交集。在最新理论发展的基础上，研究人员将详细说明种族异质性、社会混乱、非正式社会控制和亚文化的综合理论。这一理论视角规定了社区结构通过非正式的社会控制、社区文化规范和脚本以及日常活动影响社区犯罪和暴力的因果机制。该项目将对西雅图的社区和受害者进行一项新的家庭电话调查。这项调查将包括西雅图社区早先两次关于受害和社区依恋的家庭调查中包含的邻里衡量标准。调查将通过对没有回应的家庭和没有电话或未登记号码的家庭的个人采访来补充。此外，将利用焦点小组来完善街道代码的量化措施，以及邻里关系和非正式控制。分析将分几个步骤进行。首先，探索性分析和验证性因素分析将确定社区概念的基本维度，如非正式控制和暴力的文化准则。第二，社区依恋和社会控制的邻里层面模型将考察种族异质性和社区结构对邻里依恋和社会控制的影响。第三，社区层面的犯罪和暴力模型将考察种族异质性和社区结构对暴力的影响，并测试这些影响是否受到非正式社会控制和社区文化规范和剧本的影响。第四，多水平模型将利用普查区域内家庭的嵌套抽样设计，估计家庭层面的随机影响，然后模拟这些影响的邻里变化。第五，变化模型将考察种族异质性、邻里组织和暴力的变化。结果将增加对社区和暴力动态的理解，提供关键概念的改进措施，允许将西雅图与其他主要城市进行比较，并为社区干预提供基线数据，如社区警务或社区街区观察。

This project examines the intersection of race, neighborhood social organization, and crime and violence in Seattle neighborhoods. Building on recent theoretical developments, the investigators will specify an integrated theory of racial heterogeneity, social disorganization, informal social control, and sub-cultures. This theoretical perspective specifies a causal mechanism in which community structure influ-ences neighborhood crime and violence through informal social control, neighborhood cultural codes and scripts, and routine activities. The project will field a new household telephone survey of neighborhoods and victimization in Seattle. The survey will include neigh-borhood measures included in two earlier household surveys of Seattle neighborhoods on victimization and community attachment. The survey will be augmented with personal interviews of nonresponding households and households with no phone or unlisted numbers. In addition, focus groups will be used to refine the quantitative measures of street codes, as well as neighborhood ties and informal control. Analyses will be carried out in several steps. First, exploratory analyses and confirmatory factor analyses will identify dimensions underlying neighborhood concepts such as informal control and cultural codes of violence. Second, neighborhood-level models of community attachment and social control will examine the effects of racial heterogeneity and community structure on neighborhood attachment and social control. Third, neighborhood-level models of crime and violence will examine the effects of racial heterogeneity and community structure on violence, and test whether these effects are mediated by informal social control and neighborhood cultural codes and scripts. Fourth, multi-level models will capitalize on the nested sampling design of households within census tracts, estimating random effects at the household-level, and then modeling neighborhood variation in those ef-fects. Fifth, change models will examine changes in racial heterogeneity, neighborhood organization and violence. Results will increase the understanding of the dynamics of neighborhoods and violence, provide refined measures of key concepts, allow comparisons between Seattle and other major cities, and provide baseline data for neighborhood interventions, such as community policing or neighborhood block watches.