Communities and Crime: An Enduring American Challenge

Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy

by Pamela Wilcox, Francis T. Cullen, Ben Feldmeyer

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 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.

Genres: School

273 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2017

Reviews

[Em Mckenzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

great quick read for anyone who wants an overview of crim theory over the years and its natural transition to what it is now