Surrounded by violence: How do individual perceptions and community context shape views about violence?
| Author | Rebecca Wickes,Elise Sargeant,Lorraine Mazerolle,Kristina Murphy |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865817723409 |
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Surrounded by violence:
How do individual perceptions
and community context shape
views about violence?
Elise Sargeant
Griffith University, Australia
Rebecca Wickes
Monash University, Australia
Kristina Murphy
Griffith University, Australia
Lorraine Mazerolle
The University of Queensland, Australia
Abstract
In this paper we examine the community- and individual-level characteristics associated with
individuals’ perceptions of violence. We use data collected in the Australian Community
Capacity Study Wave 3 survey of over 4000 individuals living in 148 local residential com-
munities in Brisbane and employ multilevel models to examine the association between
community context, individual perceptions of police effectiveness and the belief that
people in one’s community support violence to resolve conflict. We find communities with
histories of violent crime and more negative views about police effectiveness tend to be
communities where residents perceive their neighbours will support the use of violence to
resolve conflict.
Keywords
Collective efficacy, community, policing, social control, violence
Date received: 7 October 2016; accepted: 10 July 2017
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
2018, Vol. 51(3) 355–371
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865817723409
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Corresponding author:
Elise Sargeant, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt Campus, 176 Messines
Ridge Road, Mt Gravatt, Queensland 4122, Australia.
Email: e.sargeant@griffith.edu.au
Introduction
Informal social control is central to our understanding of variations in crime across
place (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997). Informal social control is frequently
defined as a ‘social good’ involving practices or responses that are generally law abiding.
For example, residents can enact prosocial informal control by supervising community
children or by pacifying an aggressive altercation. On the other hand, informal social
control can also perpetuate community problems when violent acts (such as retaliatory
homicides and assaults) are employed to regulate unwanted behaviour (e.g. Anderson,
1999; Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003a). Donald Black (1976, 1984) suggests antisocial informal
social control actions are particularly prevalent when the police – one of the most
common and recognisable forms of community formal control – are viewed as absent
or ineffective (see also Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003a).
In the current study we examine antisocial informal control in local residential
communities. Unlike prosocial informal control, antisocial mechanisms of control (like
the use of violence to resolve conflicts) are not frequently considered in the empirical
literature (although see de Haan & Nijboer, 2005; Gau, 2008; Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003a;
Peterson, 1999; Phillips, 2003; Soller, Jackson, & Browning, 2014; Topalli, Wright, &
Fornango, 2002; Wilkinson, Beaty, & Lurry, 2009). We use data from over 4000
residents living across 148 communities
1
in Brisbane, Australia to examine the commu-
nity- and individual-level characteristics associated with the perceived use of violence as
a mechanism of informal social control. We also explore the relationship between formal
control (police effectiveness) and antisocial informal control (violence to resolve
conflict), as well as the interplay between these relationships and the community context.
Our findings point to a complex relationship between community characteristics, the
ability of police to control crime, perceptions of police effectiveness and the perceived
use of violence to resolve conflict in communities. We conclude that the formal–informal
control continuum is shaped by the way residents perceive their communities and their
neighbours.
Background literature
Since the revitalisation of social disorganisation theory in the 1980s and 1990s, a great
deal of research has examined the neighbourhood dynamics of social control. Research
finds that communities characterised by high levels of a working trust and a shared belief
that residents will intervene in community problems (referred to as collective efficacy in
the literature) have lower rates of violent crime and protect against a wide range of social
problems (e.g. Browning, 2002; Browning & Cagney, 2002; Franzini, Caughy, Spears, &
Esquer, 2005; Maimon, Browning, & Brooks-Gunn, 2010; Mazerolle, Wickes &
McBroom, 2010; Morenoff, Sampson, & Raudenbush, 2001; Odgers et al., 2009;
Sampson, Morenoff, & Earls, 1999; Sampson & Wikstro
¨m, 2008).
Scholarship has largely positioned informal social control as a ‘social good’ involving
practices or responses that are, for the most part, law abiding. There are however many
different types of social control that can operate in communities, and social control is
not always prosocial in nature (see Black, 1976, 1984; Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003b; Silver &
Miller, 2004; Warner, 2007).
356 Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 51(3)
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