Description
Book SynopsisArgues that obstacles to deepening our understanding of community/crime links arise in part because most scholars have overlooked four fundamental concerns: how conceptual frames depend on the geographic units and/or temporal units used; and how to establish the meaning of theoretically central ecological empirical indicators.
Trade ReviewIn an area too often marked by static thinking, Ralph Taylor outlines a fresh paradigm for 'community criminology.' With inordinate conceptual and methodological erudition, he unpacks the communities and crime relationship in an unprecedented way. This volume promises to be of enduring valuea work that few criminologists can afford to ignore. -- Francis T. Cullen,Distinguished Research Professor, University of Cincinnati
Long known for his careful and sophisticated empirical work on crime in community context, with this book Ralph Taylor seeks nothing less than the reinvention of community criminology. It should be read by anyone who cares about the fundamental conceptual and methodological problems of the field--from macro-micro integration to selection effects. This is analytical criminology at its very best. -- Richard B. Rosenfeld,co-editor of Economics and Youth Violence: Crime, Disadvantage, and Community
Ralph Taylor has crafted a brilliant book tackling core issues in community criminology, as well as the social sciences more generally. He navigates complex meta-theoretical, theoretical, conceptual, and empirical issues with impressive skill, erudition, and clarity. The book provides an incisive critique of what we know and do not know about communities and crime, and it lays out a highly promising agenda for future research. -- Steven F. Messner,co-author of Crime and the American Dream
This is an important book and perhaps one of the richest in insight I have read on communities and crime. There is just an amazing amount of material here on communities, criminal motivation, crime and place, hot spots of crime, history of criminology, and more. * American Journal of Sociology *
The authors admonitions about fallacies in reasoning that too often trip up multi-level, multi-variable analyses are refreshing and beneficial. The decisive message calls for multidisciplinary collaborations built upon extended time horizons. * Choice *
Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments xi 1 Overview 1 2 Three Core Community Crime Sequences 25 3 Spatial Scaling I: Relevance and Conceptual Importance 69 4 Spatial Scaling II: Metatheorizing about Community-Crime Linkages 102 5 Spatial Scaling III: Understanding Place Criminology and Hot Spots 120 6 Temporal Scaling I: Cycles and Changes 146 7 Temporal Scaling II: A Temporally Dynamic Metamodel 173 8 Ecological Indicators: Model Comparisons and Establishing Meaning 203 9 Selectivity Bias: Metamodels, Selection Effects, and Neighborhood Effects 224 10 Integration and Metatheoretical Concerns: Is Progress Possible? 256 About the Online Appendices 267 Notes 269 References 283 Index 325 About the Author 329
