Effect of Longitudinal Arrest Patterns on the Development of Robbery Trends at the Neighborhood Level (Revision of a Paper Presented at the American Society of Criminology)

• NCJ Number: 127095
• Author(s): R J Bursik Jr; H G Grasmick; M B Chamlin
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 31 pages
• Grant Number(s): 86-IJ-CX-0076
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

This paper addresses the issue of the appropriate level of aggregation of models of ecological deterrence, arguing that this would be found in the neighborhood rather than in the city, State, or nation.

Abstract

The premises of the study are that crime is not randomly distributed within a city, that the risks of punishment are not constant within a large and differentiated urban area, and that the primary sources of risk-related information within the neighborhood are friendship networks. The neighborhood-level data were collected from calls for service to the Oklahoma City Police Department over a 100-week period beginning in June 1986. The nature of each call; the month, day, year, and time of call; and the address to which police were dispatched were recorded; although this paper only reviews robberies. The findings suggest that, although there is some weak evidence of significant neighborhood differences in the deterrence process, on-site arrests, in general, do not have a deterrent effect on reported robberies. The authors suggest that the results reflect a short-term period of equilibrium in the neighborhood during which the levels of crime and arrest are relatively stabilized. 3 tables, 1 figure, 5 notes, and 46 references (Author abstract modified)