Whose 'Eyes on the Street' Control Crime?

Jane Jacobs coined the phrase 'eyes on the street' to depict those who maintain order in cities. Most criminologists assume these eyes belong to residents. In this Element we show that most of the eyes she described belonged to shopkeepers and property owners. They, along with governments, wield immense power through property ownership and regulation. From her work, we propose a Neo-Jacobian perspective to reframe how crime is connected to neighborhood function through deliberate decision-making at places. It advances three major turning points for criminology. This includes turns from: 1. residents to place managers as the primary source of informal social control; 2. ecological processes to outsiders' deliberate actions that create crime opportunities; and 3. a top-down macro- to bottom-up micro-spatial explanation of crime patterns. This perspective demonstrates the need for criminology to integrate further into economics, political science, urban planning, and history to improve crime control policies.

During and beyond the frequent lockdowns: Addressing the pandemic (COVID-19)–related family violence through informal social control

Growing literature on COVID-19 shows an increase in family violence and child maltreatment cases as a result of the public health preventive measures including lockdowns and movement restrictions. These restrictions negatively affect victims’ ability to seek social services or leave the violent relationship. There are some indications of hope, however, as countries have begun easing restrictions which may enable victims to seek social services. Yet, the fluidity of COVID-19, emergence of complex variants of COVID-19 virus, continues restrictions on face-to-face engagements and evidence of re-entry into lockdown suggest that social services would not be fully available for victims of family violence. We offer a practical community intervention approach through informal social control for victims of family violence during and even after the COVID-19 pandemic.

ENDANGERMENT OF THE ELDERLY BY CRIME AND SOCIAL RESPONSE BASED ON COMMUNITY POLICING CONCEPT

According to the average age of the population, Serbia is one of the oldest countries in the world, which results in increasing problems characteristic for the elderly population.One of them is the endangerment of the elderly by crime. In practice, not enough attention is paid to this issue, nor it is recognized as special and urgent, although due to the current number, and especially growing elderly population, their security problems will be greater and more present in society. Considering that elderly people a particularly vulnerable and discriminated category of the population, it is necessary to devise an adequate safety policy and establish an appropriate system of their protection. Community policing is recognized as a model of policing that can meet these requirements and adapt to the security needs of the elderly. This is because this concept is based on partnership with citizens and problem-oriented work. The police shouldbe open to community representatives pointing out their needs and highlighting security priorities, and the police can identify problems with them and initiate mechanisms for joint action. Community policing is proactive policing in which formal and informal social control are mutually reinforcing one another.The paper presents the most significant findings on endangerment by crime of the elderly aged 60 and over in the city of Belgrade from 2015 to 2019., in terms of: types of criminal offences, time, place, perpetrators and means of execution, as well as injured parties by gender. Also, the paper will show the organizational, functional and other advantages of community policing concept in relation to the traditional way of policing and try to answer whether its implementation can improve the safety of the elderly or adjust its operation to the security needs of this population

Social Control of Crime in Asia

The social control of crime is diversified across societies. The social control of crime in Asia inherits features that are unique to Asian cultural traditions (e.g., Confucianism and Islamism) and strives by exploring more effective models by balancing formal and informal social control. These social controls are also greatly influenced by socioeconomic developments and the dominance of the polity in Asian societies. Overall, Asian countries are going through the struggles between capitalism–socialism, democracy–authoritarianism, and traditionality–modernity. Such changing dynamics will continue to shape and reshape the way that formal and informal social institutions and processes exert control over crime and deviance. Cultivated by different civilizations, Asian societies have provided unique and valuable evidence to understand and refine the existing social control models developed from Western societies.

The Prestige of Sport and Sport as a Source of Prestige

The aim of the study is an attempt to characterise prestige as an important descriptive term, explaining the phenomena and processes occurring in (post-) modern sport and to answer the question regarding the sources of sport prestige and sport as a source of prestige. The work is based on an analysis of the literature on the given subject in the fi eld of humanities and social sciences, especially sociology, devoted to the interesting issue of prestige and sport. In the analysis,the dominant scientifi c theories were implemented, including, inter alia, structural and functional, social interactionism, Weber’s and Warner’s theory of prestige, and the theoretical assumptions of Henryk Domański and Piotr Sztompka. Through the analyse, it is shown that sport itself, in relation to other areas of life, enjoys relative prestige. Access to the stock of prestige in sport is unequal. Some disciplines, sporting activities, sport groups and individuals have greater access to it, while others do not. Sport in (post-) modern societies is a source of prestige. This is confi rmed by the pro-sport nature of informal social control, as a result of which, participation in sport is subject to positive social sanctions, while lack of such participation is deprived of such sanctions.

Social Cohesion and Informal Social Control as Mediators Between Neighborhood Poverty and Child Maltreatment

Neighborhoods have profound impacts on children and families. Using structural equation modeling and data from 4,898 children in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, the current study examines the direct and indirect effects of neighborhood poverty on the likelihood of being maltreated at age 5. Two neighborhood social processes, social cohesion and informal social control, were examined as mediators. The study found that neighborhood poverty was indirectly related to physical assault and psychological aggression through its impact on social cohesion, and indirectly related to neglect through its impact on informal social control. The results highlight the need to reduce poverty across communities and increase social cohesion and social control as potential pathways for interrupting the impact of neighborhood poverty on maltreatment.

Social Disorganization and Strain: Macro and Micro Implications for Youth Violence

Objectives: Explanations of community violence traditionally reflect a social disorganization perspective, suggesting that neighborhood characteristics affect crime via the intervening mechanism of informal social control. Drawing on Agnew’s Macro Strain Theory [MST], we argue that neighborhood characteristics 1) also affect macro-level crime for reasons related to aggregated strain and 2) condition the relationship between micro-level strains and individual violent offending. Methods: Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, we conduct a series of multilevel models examining both the macro- and multi-level relationship between neighborhood characteristics, strain and youth violence. Findings: Results generally support our arguments, suggesting that neighborhood characteristics like concentrated disadvantage 1) remain associated with community violence even after adjusting for multiple measures of informal social control and 2) condition the association between micro-level strain and violent offending. Conclusions: Strain processes, at both the macro and micro-level, play a critical role in the well-established empirical relationship between structural disadvantage and violence. In light of results, community crime control policies should address the ways in which structural disadvantage increases motivation, rather than focusing exclusively on the ways in which it weakens informal social control.

Contribution of Design Indicators in Perception of Social Capital, and Interference of Socio-Demographic Information in the Process

Social capital is the effective contribution of social groups through providing a context for cooperation, sense of identity, and perception of social norms. Urban parks are important components of cities, helps building the social capital within urban societies. This study examines the social capital of important urban parks of Tehran, Iran, using three main criteria: informal social control, social cohesion, and social leverage. A stratified random sample of 330 users were selected and asked to rank the social capital criteria using a questionnaire involving five-point Likert scale questions. The results show mutual relationship between informal social control and social leverage (r = 0.62, α = 0.00), and also inter-relationship between design indicators and perceived social capital. People from lower age group and higher educational level show highest perception of social capital. Perceptual difference were observed between genders. Women experience higher esthetic perception (α = 0.00), security (α = 0.01), and accessibility (α = 0.03). The study, while proving the relationship between social indicators and design features, and the impact of personal characteristics on the perception of social capital, indicates social inequality in citizens’ equal benefit of social capital. Measures must be taken to increase social capital in society and solve the significant lower perceptions of some social capital indicators among specific groups.