hippj

Lab publication: Book on The Spatial Scale of Crime

December 8, 2022 by hippj

Lab co-director Dr. John R. Hipp has released a new book. In it he notes that a characteristic of many crime incidents is that they happen at a particular spatial location and a point in time. These two simple insights suggest the need for both a spatial and a longitudinal perspective in studying crime events. The spatial question focuses on why crime seems to occur more frequently in some locations than others, and the consequences of this for certain areas of cities, or neighborhoods. The longitudinal component focuses on how crime impacts, and is impacted by, characteristics of the environment. This book looks at where offenders, targets, and guardians might live, and where they might spatially travel throughout the environment, exploring how vibrant neighborhoods are generated, how neighborhoods change, and what determines why some neighborhoods decline over time while others avoid this fate.

—WINNER of the 2023 James Short Senior Scholar Award for best book or paper published, from the Division of Communities and Place in the American Society of Criminology—

Read more about the book from Dr. John R. Hipp here.

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Lab member Navi Kaur to join San Francisco State University

December 7, 2022 by hippj

We’re all super proud of lab member Navi Kaur, who successfully defended her dissertation and received her Ph.D. in 2023 from the Department of Criminology, Law & Society. She will be an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Studies at San Francisco State University. Navi’s research critically reframes individualized notions of violence and works toward a structural analysis that locates the violence produced by disinvestment and antiblackness. Bridging the fields of criminology, critical geographies, and sociolegal studies, her work complicates literature on neighborhoods and crime by interrogating how organized abandonment and organized state violence further marginalize racialized people through the reformulation of the shadow state and carceral state.. In her time at ILSSC she has received numerous fellowships and awards, including the prestigious Eugene Cota Robles Fellowship, a Bonnie Reiss Carbon Neutrality Initiative Fellow, and the UC Irvine Chancellor’s Club Fellowship. Congrats Navi! See all of our lab alumni here: https://ilssc.soceco.uci.edu/lab-members/#gradalum1

Lab publication on who leaves and who enters: consequences for neighborhood crime

August 15, 2022 by hippj

While the net change in demographics of a neighborhood likely impacts how levels of crime change, this study explores whether it matters who leaves a neighborhood, and who is entering the neighborhood–that is, the flows of people in or out of a neighborhood. Using a novel demographic accounting technique that allows computing who is leaving or entering a neighborhood based on race/ethnicity, age, or length of residence, the study finds that there are some somewhat surprising results indicating which neighborhoods are more likely to experience crime increases. For example, neighborhoods in which young adults (aged 15 to 29) are relatively trapped experience larger crime increases, while the stability of middle-aged residents is beneficial for neighborhoods. The results are found using data on neighborhoods in Southern California across two decades (2000-10 and 2010-17).

You can access the article by lab alumnus Dr. John R. Hipp and lab alum Alyssa Chamberlain in the journal Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency entitled, “Who Leaves and Who Enters? Flow Measures of Neighborhood Change and Consequences for Neighborhood Crime.””.

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Lab publication on improving or declining neighborhoods and crime

August 8, 2022 by hippj

Criminologists often compare neighborhoods at a point in time to determine which ones have more crime. It is also the case that criminological theories are then tested based on these differences across neighborhoods. However, it is possible that how a neighborhood is changing may matter for how levels of crime change. In some cases, crime may increase regardless whether the neighborhood is improving or declining based on some measure. We show that there are indeed important effects for types of neighborhood change and how crime changes with decade over a decade in the Southern California region.

You can access the article by Dr. John R. Hipp and lab member Xiaoshuang Iris Luo in the journal Criminology entitled, “Improving or Declining: What are the Consequences for changes in local crime?”.

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Lab publication on immigrant organizations and neighborhood crime

August 1, 2022 by hippj

Criminologists have consistently found that neighborhoods with more immigrants do not have more crime, but in fact often have less crime. Criminologists have proposed that voluntary organizations can help neighborhoods deal with problems that can result in more crime. One possibility for why some immigrant neighborhoods have lower crime rates is that they have voluntary organizations that help organize the community. We test this possibility with longitudinal data in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and find evidence that such organizations do indeed seem to be beneficial for some neighborhoods over time.

You can access the article by lab alumnus Young-An Kim, Dr. John R. Hipp, and Dr. Charis E. Kubrin in the journal Crime & Delinquency entitled, “Immigrant Organizations and Neighborhood Crime”.

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