Christopher Browning, professor, sociology, presents, "Community Routines and Crime: Columbus as a Case Study.”
Abstract:
Despite decades of research, our knowledge of why and how neighborhoods influence adolescent risk behavior and crime is still emerging. We argue that conventional neighborhood-based criminological approaches have neglected the day-to-day routine activities of urban residents and their implications for neighborhood social climates (e.g., trust, informal social control) and crime. We hypothesize that neighborhoods in which residents encounter one another in space more extensively in the course of conventional routine activities will exhibit higher levels of familiarity, beneficial (“weak”) ties, trust, collective efficacy, and more consistent monitoring of public space. Using travel diary data from the 1999 Mid-Ohio Area Household Travel Survey, 2000 census data, and crime data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study, we examine associations between the network structure of shared exposure based on routine activities and crime in Columbus neighborhoods. We then present preliminary data from the Adolescent Health and Development in Context study – an ongoing, large-scale, longitudinal data collection effort designed to capture precise information on the routine activities of Columbus youth (ages 11-17) using smartphone-based GPS tracking and real-time surveys.
Pizza, salad and refreshments will be served.