Neighborhood Disorganization and Social Control: Case Studies from Three Russian Cities

89 Pages·2016·1.531 MB·English

by  Olga Siegmunt (auth.)

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN CRIMINOLOGY
INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE CRIMINOLOGY
Olga Siegmunt
Neighborhood
Disorganization
and Social Control
Case Studies from
Three Russian Cities
123
SpringerBriefs in Criminology
International and Comparative Criminology
Series Editor
Ernesto U. Savona, Transcrime, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano,
Milan, Italy
More Information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11921
Olga Siegmunt
Neighborhood
Disorganization and Social
Control
Case Studies from Three Russian Cities
123
OlgaSiegmunt
HafenCity University Hamburg
Hamburg
Germany
ISSN 2192-8533 ISSN 2192-8541 (electronic)
SpringerBriefs inCriminology
ISSN 2365-841X ISSN 2365-8428 (electronic)
International andComparative Criminology
ISBN978-3-319-21589-1 ISBN978-3-319-21590-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-21590-7
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The study of cross-level interactions may be
the most promising avenue advancing
knowledge about the role of the community
context in crime causation.
(Wikström and Sampson 2003: 138)
Preface
The main topic of this book is the concept of self-control and its causes and
consequences for delinquent behavior as well as its mediating role in the rela-
tionship between socializing institutions (family, school, and neighborhood) and
juveniledelinquency.Inthecauseofthestudy,thebasicassumptionsofthegeneral
theory of crime by Gottfredson and Hirschi will be investigated. This study
examines not only the importance of family socialization but also the role of the
schoolfortheself-controlofyouth.Additionally,therelevanceofneighborhoodis
consideredbycombiningthegeneraltheoryofcrimewiththesocialdisorganization
theorybyShawandMcKay.Theoveralltheoreticalbackgroundofthisstudystays
in the tradition of control-theoretical approaches.
The idea of this study originates from results of an earlier study comparing
self-reported juvenile delinquency in the Russian city of Volgograd and in four
German cities (Hamburg, Hanover, Leipzig, and Munich) conducted in 2000. The
results of this study were published in a book entitled “Kriminelle Russen, krim-
inelle Deutsche: Zur Jugendkriminalität im Hell- und Dunkelfeld” written by
Siegmunt in 2013. The main results showed that the structure of delinquency as
well as the structure of attitudes toward violence differed in both countries. Apart
frominvestigatingthemajorresearchquestionsmentionedabove,itwasinteresting
to test whether these findings could be replicated in the new study conducted
severalyearslater.Thisstudyisbasedontheself-reportsofninth-gradestudentsin
three Russian cities. The data were collected in a project funded by the German
Research Foundation (DFG)1 and realized at the Institute of Criminal Sciences
of the University of Hamburg (Germany).
This book is an abbreviated version of a German one with the original title
“Selbstkontrolle: Einflüsse von Familie, Schule und Nachbarschaften. Eine kon-
trolltheoretische Studie in drei russischen Großstädten” published by
Wisseschaftlicher Verlag Berlin in 2012. This book includes not all but the main
1DFG-Project “Juvenile delinquency in Germany and Russia: culturally comparative self-report
studytoinvestigateofanomieandcontroltheoreticalapproaches”(#WE3833/1-1).
vii
viii Preface
results from this study. The German version focuses much strongly on the devel-
opment of Russian cities, the development of socialized institutions such as
neighborhoods, family, and schools, and the youth delinquency in Russia. In this
book, I attempted to find a balance between the theoretical assumptions, historical
background, and empirical testing. The next, I changed the structure of the
methodicalpartofthebook.Finally,Iexamined inmyGermanbookfivekindsof
delinquency. In this book, I examined only the versatility as a whole measure of
delinquency.
Hamburg Olga Siegmunt
December 2015
Contents
1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Theoretical Framework and Central Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Empirical Basis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Structure of This Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 The General Theory of Crime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 “Crime” and “Criminality”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1 Regarding the Definition of “Crime”. . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.2 Regarding the Definition of “Criminality” . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 Causes for Self-Control: The Family. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3 State of Research: Parental Rearing Behavior
and Self-Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3 The Neighborhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.1 Social Disorganization Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2 Compatibility of Social Disorganization
and Self-Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.2.1 Composition of the Neighborhoods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2.2 Neighborhood Context. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.3 State of Research: Neighborhood Context and Self-Control . . . 15
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4 Context at School and Self-Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.1 Causes for Self-Control: School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.2 State of Research: School Context and Self-Control . . . . . . . . 18
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5 Theoretical Concepts and Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.1 Conceptual Model 1: Influences of the Family . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.2 Conceptual Model 2: Influence of the Neighborhood. . . . . . . . 22
5.3 Conceptual Model 3: Influence of Schools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
ix
x Contents
6 Methods and Procedures, Implementation of the Study,
and Description of the Sample. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
6.1 Choice of Participating Cities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
6.2 Definition of the Neighborhoods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
6.3 Questionnaire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
6.4 Sampling Design and Implementation of the Study. . . . . . . . . 28
6.5 Response Rates of the School Student Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
6.6 Description of the Sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
7 Variable Description and Descriptive Results: Aggregate Level. . . 31
7.1 Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
7.2 Ethnic Heterogeneity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
7.3 Residential Mobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
7.4 Incompleteness of the Families. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
7.5 Social (Dis)Organization and Informal Social Control
in the Neighborhoods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
7.6 School Social Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
7.7 School Attachment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
7.8 Bivariate Relationships Between the Neighborhood- and
School-Level Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
8 Descriptive Results and Scale Analysis: Individual-Level
Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
8.1 Parental Supervision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
8.2 Attachment to the Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
8.3 Self-Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
8.4 Self-Reported Delinquency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
8.5 Bivariate Relationships Between the Individual-Level
Variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
9 Intraclass Correlation, Median Odds Ratio, and Ecological
Reliability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
9.1 Analysis with Cross-Classified Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
10 Results of Hypothesis Testing: Influences of the Family . . . . . . . . 47
10.1 Influence of Family Socialization on Self-Control. . . . . . . . . . 47
10.2 Influence of Self-Control on Juvenile Delinquency . . . . . . . . . 47
10.3 Mediating Effect of Self-Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50