Place Manager Failures and Successes

Abstract

As crime impinges on successful place management, and given place managers possess considerable powers, why do some place managers allow a great deal of crime on their properties? We use a typology of place managers, the concept of super controllers, and the distribution of costs to answer this question. In most cases, super controllers provide strong incentives to place managers to fight crime. In most circumstances, crime is sufficiently costly that place managers have their own incentives to fight crime. But for a relatively few place managers, external and internal incentives align to make it easier for them to tolerate crime. It is at their places that crime concentrates.