Criminological Research on Public Housing: Toward a Better Understanding of People, Places, and Spaces

• NCJ Number: 162081
• Journal: Crime & Delinquency Volume: 42 Issue: 3 Dated: (July 1996) Pages: 361-378
• Author(s): H R Holzman
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 18 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

This article presents data in support of the author's assertion that criminologists are woefully uninformed about the nature of public housing communities and their crime problems.

Abstract

Although public housing in the United States is often portrayed as crime-ridden, little information from official statistics is available to support this impression. Furthermore, only a few criminologists have done empirical research on crime in public housing, and that research has tended to focus on large public housing authorities in big cities. The author claims that accurate information on the level of crime in public housing is difficult to obtain, and knowledge of the volume and type of crime in public housing and how crime there compares to that found in other neighborhoods is fragmentary at best. However, the preponderance of anecdotal evidence as well as existing criminological research suggests that big-city public housing does have and will continue to have serious crime problems, and criminologists should do more research in these communities. Figure, notes, references