Incivilities, Place Attachment and Crime: Block and Individual Effects

• Main Authors: Brown, Barbara, Perkins, Douglas, BROWN, Graham
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2004
• Subjects: The popular incivilities hypothesis suggests physical incivilities; such as unkempt lawns and litter; and weak social ties with neighbors encourage crime. Despite a strong impact on policing policies and public awareness; this hypothesis has seldom been tested. We extend this basic model to test whether place attachments protect from crime as well. In a suburban area facing decline; multilevel (hierarchical linear modeling) analyses reveal that renters; properties with more physical incivilities; and blocks with more physical incivilities experience more subsequent crimes. Although these actual physical incivilities were important predictors of crime; residents’ perceptions of incivilities were not; suggesting that environmental incivilities act directly upon offenders; not through non-offender resident perceptions. A cross-level interaction indicated incivilities predicted crime less well on socially cohesive blocks; suggesting that social cohesion can buffer the effects of the physical environment. Weaker block level place attachments also contributed independently to individuals’ risks of crime; demonstrating that place attachment merits greater attention in neighborhood revitalization and crime reduction interventions; Business
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/2432; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2004.01.001
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The popular incivilities hypothesis suggests physical incivilities, such as unkempt lawns and litter, and weak social ties with neighbors encourage crime. Despite a strong impact on policing policies and public awareness, this hypothesis has seldom been tested. We extend this basic model to test whe...