Exploring the ‘criminology of place’ in Chicago: a multi-level analysis of the spatial variation in violent crime across micro-places and neighborhoods

Two historically distinct bodies of research evidence have developed in criminology to understand the spatial variability of crime patterns within cities. This study explores the integration of both units of analysis and theories from each literature to enhance our understanding of the spatial variability of violent crime across urban landscapes. Using historical and contemporary data sources from Chicago a multi-level, longitudinal analysis explores both the prospects of integrating key concepts from crime opportunity and social disorganization theories to explain spatial variation in violence and attempt to address some concerns raised about the viability of theory integration in micro-contexts. Both descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were conducted to analyze the spatial variation of violent crime incident reports from 2001 to 2014. This dissertation research focuses on three key questions. The first inquiry is designed to examine whether violent crime is clustered at street segments, neighborhood clusters, and community areas over time in Chicago. While violent crimes incidents were concentrated at all units of analysis in Chicago only patterns at street segments were characterized by developmental stability over the observation period. The second inquiry attempts to determine the unique contribution of each spatial unit of analysis to description of the total spatial variability of violent crime across Chicago over time. Street segments accounted for the largest share of the total spatial variability confirming that micro-places do indeed account for the most refined description of crime patterns within cities even when accounting for their hierarchical nesting within neighborhoods. The third inquiry examines the role of criminal opportunity measures at the street segments and social disorganization measures at the neighborhood clusters to explaining the spatial variability of violence within and between Chicago neighborhoods. The influence of criminal opportunity was found to vary noticeably between neighborhood clusters indicating the salience of neighborhood effects. Overall, this study suggests a multi-level integration of micro-places and neighborhoods in addition to criminal opportunity and social disorganization theories can offer a more comprehensive understanding of the spatial distribution of crime within cities.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Cory G. Schnel