NCJ Number
182009
Journal
Canadian Journal of Criminology Volume: 42 Issue: 2 Dated: April 2000 Pages: 135-156
Date Published
April 2000
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This study examines how social disorganization and criminal opportunities shape the spatial distribution of juvenile delinquency in Montreal.
Abstract
In intraurban ecological research, the choice of the level of aggregation constitutes the first major decision for the researcher. Yet, there are very few empirical studies on the impact of this decision on expected results. This study compared two conceptual models (social disorganization versus opportunity theory) to two dependent variables (offender rate and juvenile crime rate) for two distinct aggregation levels (495 census tracts and 84 neighborhoods). Social disorganization variables predicted fairly well areas’ offender rates (where delinquents live) while the opportunity variables helped explain areas’ juvenile crime rate (where crimes are committed). As analysis went from the census tract level to the neighborhood level, the explanatory power of the predictors often increased, which was counterbalanced by a loss in the degrees of freedom. Census tracts would be the ideal level of aggregation for testing opportunity theory and the census tract aggregation level ideal for social disorganization research. Tables, notes, references