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Neighborhood Social Capital, Juvenile Delinquency, and Victimization: Results from the International Self-Report Delinquency Study - 3 in 23 Countries

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Abstract

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, criminology has attempted to identify ecological factors affecting the rise or the decrease in crime rates. In this framework, concepts of “social disorganization”, “collective efficacy”, and “social capital” have been coined. Particularly in recent years, the perspective of “social capital” has attracted the interest of criminologists, but, despite the numerous studies conducted in this field, some issues remain open. Firstly, studies conducted outside the US context are few. Secondly, even in North American studies, there is a disagreement over the impact of social capital on crime, in particular on violent crimes. The results of this study, conducted on data obtained by the ISRD3 survey in 23 countries around the world, and addressed to 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students (N = 55,201), try to address such issue: they show a negative correlation between social capital and self-reported crime also outside North America, both for violent crimes and general delinquency. The preventive role played by social capital on crime is also confirmed considering the self-reported data on victimization.

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Notes

  1. In reality, between the 1960s and 1970s, the concept of social disorganization, which incorporated in a somewhat vague manner both social bonds and informal social control, was partially set aside, not least because of the emergence of some methodological flaws in the interpretation of data; hence, it was dubbed an “ecological fallacy” (Robinson 2009; Weisburd et al. 2009).

  2. In this sense, Sampson (2008) subsequently also pointed out that the component of “repeated social interactions” was central to the definition of “collective efficacy”. Moreover, in measuring the second dimension of collective efficacy (informal control), the items regarding hypothetical situations have aroused criticism, in that they would require an excessive effort of the imagination on the part of those living in neighborhoods with low levels of crime, for example (Jean 2008; Hipp and Wo 2015; Hipp 2016).

  3. Notwithstanding the success of “social capital”, it cannot be claimed that there is an agreed definition of the concept or a uniform method of measuring it (Rodríguez-Pose and von Berlepsch 2014). To illustrate the intricacy of the mixture of theory and methodology, we need only remember that Coleman saw social capital as a tripartite concept composed of: 1) trust, 2) channels of information, and 3) norms and sanctions (1988). Putnam (1995), by contrast, stressed the role played by interpersonal relationships, both formal (political, civic, work-related) and informal (family and friends); these networks are claimed to prompt trust, stability, and economic growth. This vision, however, is opposed to that of Olson (1982), who showed that social circles can promote particularized interests that do not necessarily benefit society or foster a sense of trust. So far, attempts to settle the Putnam-Olsen controversy by subjecting both hypotheses to empirical investigation have failed to provide definitive answers (Knack 2003; Pena López and Sánchez Santos 2007). Moreover, methodological wrangling does not help to clarify the issue; indeed, Adler and Kwon (2002) point out that there are as many ways of operationalizing the concept of social capital as there are researchers who deal with it.

  4. A measure of the preponderance of US studies is provided by appendix A of the article by Sutherland et al. (2013), which lists 19 studies on collective efficacy and crime: ten in the USA, three in Great Britain, and the remaining six in the rest of the world.

  5. The study uses (1) data of a community survey among residents in the city area of The Hague (the third largest city of Netherlands) in 2009, (2) additional census data of the local government (mostly of 2008), and (3) police data containing geo-codes of all recorded offences committed in 2009 and of the home addresses of all arrested suspects in the city in 2009. With this dataset they tested six versions of social disorganization theory :the classic model, Shaw and McKay’s model, Sampson’s model (1987), Sampson and Grove’s model (1989), social capital model, and collective efficacy. The findings reveal that social disorganization models do not fit the data well.

  6. They used Sampson’s et al. scale (1997) to identify a negative association between collective efficacy and levels of crime (b − 0.019, se 0.007, p ≤ 0.01). However, unlike previous research, this is considerably weaker than the other neighborhood effects considered.

  7. Measured as the number of calls for an ambulance following knife wounds.

  8. For the present study, they assessed the degree of civicness using three of the four indicators used by Putnam: 1) Voter turnout in the 1993 referendums; 2) The percentage of citizens over the age of 13 years who read or leafed through a newspaper every day; 3) The presence of clubs and associations for recreation, sports, culture, etc., as quantified through specific measurements.

  9. Based on social disorganization theory, they use a survey questionnaire to empirically derive an index of “social distance” by calculating averaged differences in sociodemographic characteristics (social class, stage of life course, size of hometown of origin) between residents.

  10. To measure social capital, they use a county level index collecting the number of religious institutions, civic organizations, business organizations, nonprofit organizations, political organizations, labor organizations, bowling centers, fitness centers, and the number of public golf courses in each county across the United States for 2000.

  11. This study uses four blocks of secondary data sources to build a set of proxy measures of social capital: the first is an extensive set of variables representing a range of enterprises that represent social capital; the second set is the number of nonprofits; the third set of social capital measures is the number of churches by denomination per 1000 persons; finally, a fourth block of social capital metrics draw data from a data set on cooperative business enterprises.

  12. As shown by the survey items, our conception of social capital is not deduced by objective data, but refers to the opinions of the members of the sample. In other words, when we speak of “social capital” we refer to “perceived social capital”.

  13. Our social capital construct concerns the first dimension identified by Sampson to measure collective efficacy. One of the five items identified by Sampson, however, was excluded for reasons of concision by the researchers who drew up the ISRD3 questionnaire: namely, Sampson’s item “people in this neighborhood do not share the same values”. With regard to the second dimension of “collective efficacy”, i.e., that of informal social control, it should be borne in mind that the ISRD surveys do not envision questioning the parents of the subjects examined. In the opinion of the coordinators of the research, this hinders in-depth analysis of the informal social control component (Junger-Tas et al. 2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Oriana Binik, Adolfo Ceretti & Roberto Cornelli

  2. University Statale di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Hans Schadee

  3. University of Genova, Genoa, Italy

    Alfredo Verde & Uberto Gatti

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  1. Oriana Binik
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  2. Adolfo Ceretti
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  3. Roberto Cornelli
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  4. Hans Schadee
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Binik, O., Ceretti, A., Cornelli, R. et al. Neighborhood Social Capital, Juvenile Delinquency, and Victimization: Results from the International Self-Report Delinquency Study - 3 in 23 Countries. Eur J Crim Policy Res 25, 241–258 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-018-9406-1

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