PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2019, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Criminal Justice

Architectural journalist Jane Jacobs is arguably one of the most influential figures in urban social sciences and city planning. Yet, she has received minimal attention in the criminological literature. I argue this stemmed from her ideas being linked to those of Oscar Newman. However, these initial interpretations of her ideas—namely that street safety is achieved through surveillance by residents—do not appear to take her contextual examples into account. This mistake is important because it obscures a vital source of social control in urban environments. In this dissertation I examine Jacobs' work and argue that she regarded shopkeepers (i.e., place managers) as the primary source of informal social control. While past interpretations assume Jacobs had a resident-focused explanation of crime, I propose that she had an owner/manager-focus in her writing. From this I unite her work with recent theories of place management into a Neo-Jacobian perspective of place and neighborhood crime. The theory highlights how deliberate decisions and actions taken by property owners and government agencies give rise to neighborhood crime. I then test the theory with three studies using a mixed methods approach. The first study examines the mechanisms of property ownership and neighborhood crime through qualitative interviews in Walnut Hills, a neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio that is currently under redevelopment. Next, I conduct a time series analysis to examine how place-based redevelopment influences neighborhood crime in the same neighborhood. The last study tests the notion that there are at least two distinct crime generating processes operating within neighborhoods and that each possess different causal mechanisms. The results suggest that people external to neighborhoods can wield immense control within neighborhoods through property ownership. Moreover, the political decisions that impact the economic vitality of businesses can have a strong influence on crime. How (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: John Eck Ph.D. (Committee Chair); J.C. Barnes Ph.D. (Committee Member); Kate Bowers Ph.D. (Committee Member); Pamela Wilcox Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Criminology

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2012, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Criminal Justice

Though there has been considerable research into urban crime, there is little criminological research and theoretical development on central business districts despite the fact these areas are critical in the functioning of cities. In fact, studies often exclude them because of the lack of residential population from which to draw statistical inferences. As a result, theories of urban neighborhoods may have little applicability to central business districts; therefore, little is known about the processes used to control crime and disorder in central business district neighborhoods. The purpose of this study is to address the gap in the crime literature by developing a framework, based in environmental criminology, that will enable researchers to examine central business district crime control processes. The central business district of Cincinnati is used as a single-site case study to determine the framework's ability to identify those crime control processes most likely to work in central business districts and to identify those that do not. Data are drawn from official crime statistics for the City of Cincinnati, other official documentations, direct observations, and interviews with central business district business owners and residents. Findings suggest this framework is appropriate for identifying crime control processes within central business districts. The results of this study will advance our knowledge of effective crime prevention strategies in areas where issues of ownership and crime control are less clear-cut.

Committee: John Eck PhD (Committee Chair); Tamara Madensen PhD (Committee Member); James Frank PhD (Committee Member); Pamela Wilcox PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Criminology