Disentangling the Crime-Arrest Relationship: The Influence of Social Context

• NCJ Number: 229341
• Journal: Journal of Quantitative Criminology Volume: 28 Issue: 4 Dated: December 2009 Pages: 371-389
• Author(s): Mitchell B. Chamlin; Andrew J. Myer
• Date Published: December 2009
• Length: 19 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study used autoregressive integrated moving average techniques in assessing whether the social context of the April 2001 race-related riot in Cincinnati, OH, conditioned the reciprocal relationship between property crime and arrests for the entire city as well as by police district.

Abstract

As the authors hypothesized, based on racial conflict theory, the effect of property crime on arrests was conditioned by both the occurrence of the race-related riot and the racial composition of the community. In the police district that had the highest concentration of African-Americans, the crime level negatively influenced the arrest level in the postriot period (benign neglect process); however, in the rest of the city, the crime level positively influenced the arrest level (a racial threat process). The study also found evidence of a postriot deterrent effect, i.e., the final city-level bivariate-transfer-function equation found that an increase in the number of arrests in a given month resulted in a significant decline in the number of crimes in the succeeding month. Thus, the study shows that changes in the social environment are important factors that influence how various actors produce and respond to marginal change in the crime level and arrests. The authors suggest that Cincinnati's riot and its aftermath may have caused potential criminals to be more sensitive to the activities of law enforcement officials, making them more responsive to marginal increases in the arrest level. It is also possible that the riot heightened fear of racial minorities and the fear of crime among Whites, which could explain more rigorous law enforcement practices in White areas of the city compared to Black neighborhoods. The study used monthly data on property crime and arrests for the whole city and by police district for years 1997 to 2005. 6 tables and 47 references