Suburban Crime: Interplay of Social, Cultural, and Opportunity Structures

• NCJ Number: 216551
• Author(s): Sanjay Marwah
• Date Published: 2006
• Length: 261 pages
• Sale Source: LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC
• Publication Format: Book (Hardbound)
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study applied a broad framework to examine and explain property and violent crime rates across suburban municipalities within the five-county Los Angeles metropolitan region.

Abstract

The main thesis is that "opportunities, when conceived as both resources to achieve objectives (related more strongly to status) and as physical targets or property (related more strongly to function), in combination with functional and status differences help to explain the scale and distribution of property and violent crime rates across municipalities." Opportunities are significantly related to the activities and resources of suburban residents and the commercial enterprises that serve them. Crime and violence require both inviting targets and/or motivated actors who usually lack the resources possessed by the targets. The distribution of resources and targets that results from the operation of multiple structures is critical in explaining the distribution of crime rates across the metropolis. Policies, strategies, and resource allocation related to crime prevention and crime control should take into account the opportunities and activities associated with property and violent crime. After discussing the history and relevance of opportunity structures, this book addresses suburban stratification and crime in metropolitan areas. These concepts are then applied in an analysis of violent and property crime in suburban Los Angeles. Three types of property offenses (shoplifting, commercial robberies, and nonresidential burglaries) were examined, along with three types of violent crimes (highway robberies, firearm assaults, and strong-arm assaults). Data on these crimes in 132 municipalities in 1980 composed the baseline data. The number of municipalities with similar data available for 1992 and 2000 was 162 and 171, respectively. In order to assess the stability of the model parameters over time, the same model specifications used in the first decade were applied to the subsequent two decades. Extensive tables and figures, a 150-item bibliography, appended supplementary data, and a subject index