NCJ Number
128822
Journal
Security Journal Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Dated: (1990) Pages: 218-225
Date Published
1990
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This paper describes some of the methods and initial findings of an ongoing biographical study of a high crime residential development in St. Louis.
Abstract
Recent work on the ecology of predatory crime has identified single block and even street intersections as crime "hot spots," but has not explained how they became hot spots. The residential development of this study, "Mid-City" (a pseudonym), began in 1969 as a private, federally assisted project and for a few years was well-integrated and mostly middle-class. By 1988, all the whites had moved out, most of the tenants were underemployed single-parent welfare families, and Mid-City looked like a war zone. Data taken from April 1988, when crime-prevention strategies were introduced, to September 1989 show that the number of crimes dropped from 67 during the first 6 months of the period to 49 in the last 6 months -- but the rate per occupied unit rose from 0.7 to 0.8 percent. Evidence indicates that the risk of crime varies independently of the people found there and therefore crime-prevention strategies based on manipulation of people proves inadequate; place-oriented strategies may produce short-term benefits at the risk of long-term failure. 5 tables and 12 references (Author abstract modified)