Assessing the Social Structural and Ecological Context of the Relationship Between Public Order Crime and More Serious Crime

The proposed project will build on data from the applicant's recently completed NIJ-funded research project, which investigated the spatial and temporal relationship between disorder (public order crime) and more serious felony offending C a link hypothesized in the "incivilities thesis." In order to estimate models with adequate social-structural and ecological controls, the project will expand the existing database on crimes in Austin, Texas, from 1994 to 2000, using 2000 census data and comparable crime data for the years 2001 and 2002 from the Austin Police Department.