NCJ Number
229217
Journal
Criminology Volume: 47 Issue: 4 Dated: November 2009 Pages: 1223-1264
Date Published
November 2009
Length
42 pages
Annotation
This study examined links between land uses and violent crime and assessed whether such links were conditioned by socioeconomic disadvantage.
Abstract
Results indicate that, net of other variables, specific land uses predict variation in counts for individual violent crimes and aggregate rates. Some nonresidential land uses were associated with higher violent crime counts, whereas others were associated with lower counts. Specific land uses also condition the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage on violent crime. In summation, the findings indicate that specific land uses affect violent crime, and the effects of such land uses on violent crime vary depending on the level of socioeconomic disadvantage in the area. Consideration of the relationship between land use and crime has a long history in criminological research. This systematic study examined the effect of objectively measured land uses on a variety of serious violent crimes with consideration of the conditional effects of land uses and disadvantage. The study employed geocoded Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data from the Indianapolis Police Department and information on 30 categories of land use and demographic information from the 2000 U.S. Census. Tables, figures, references, and appendixes