Urban Violence (urban + violence)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


NO COMMUNITY IS AN ISLAND: THE EFFECTS OF RESOURCE DEPRIVATION ON URBAN VIOLENCE IN SPATIALLY AND SOCIALLY PROXIMATE COMMUNITIES,

CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2006
DANIEL P. MEARS
The link between resource deprivation and urban violence has long been explored in criminological research. Studies, however, have largely ignored the potential for resource deprivation in particular communities to affect rates of violence in others. The relative inattention is notable because of the strong theoretical grounds to anticipate influences that extend both to geographically contiguous areas and to those that, though not contiguous, share similar social characteristics. We argue that such influences,what we term spatial and social proximity effects, respectively,constitute a central feature of community dynamics. To support this argument, we develop and test theoretically derived hypotheses about spatial and social proximity effects of resource deprivation on aggregated and disaggregated homicide counts. Our analyses indicate that local area resource deprivation contributes to violence in socially proximate communities, an effect that, in the case of instrumental homicides, is stronger when such communities are spatially proximate. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for theories focused on community-level social processes and violence, and for policies aimed at reducing crime in disadvantaged areas. [source]


INDUSTRIAL SHIFT, POLARIZED LABOR MARKETS AND URBAN VIOLENCE: MODELING THE DYNAMICS BETWEEN THE ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION AND DISAGGREGATED HOMICIDE,

CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2004
KAREN F. PARKER
Industrial restructuring marks the removal of a manufacturing and production-based economy in urban areas, which had served as a catalyst in concentrating disadvantage and polarizing labor markets since the 1970s. Although scholars have established a relationship between concentrated disadvantage , poverty, joblessness, racial residential segregation , and urban violence in cross-sectional studies, this literature has yet to estimate whether economic restructuring contributed to the change in urban homicide over time. Modeling this relationship requires an analytical strategy that incorporates specific indicators of (race and gender) polarized labor markets, separate from indicators of urban disadvantage, on disaggregated homicides while taking into account the growing dependency of urban cities on formal social control (via police presence and rise in incarceration). In this study I provide a theoretical rationale for linking industrial restructuring to urban homicide. Using a multivariate strategy to capture the shift in labor market forces and disaggregated homicides from 1980 to 1990, I also estimate the impact of this relationship. The results provide evidence of the industrial ship and documents both the decline in Manufacturing jobs for black males and black females and a growth in the service sector opportunities for white males only. I also find that industrial restructuring had a unique impact on disaggregated homicide beyond what has previously been established in cross-sectional studies. [source]


NO COMMUNITY IS AN ISLAND: THE EFFECTS OF RESOURCE DEPRIVATION ON URBAN VIOLENCE IN SPATIALLY AND SOCIALLY PROXIMATE COMMUNITIES,

CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2006
DANIEL P. MEARS
The link between resource deprivation and urban violence has long been explored in criminological research. Studies, however, have largely ignored the potential for resource deprivation in particular communities to affect rates of violence in others. The relative inattention is notable because of the strong theoretical grounds to anticipate influences that extend both to geographically contiguous areas and to those that, though not contiguous, share similar social characteristics. We argue that such influences,what we term spatial and social proximity effects, respectively,constitute a central feature of community dynamics. To support this argument, we develop and test theoretically derived hypotheses about spatial and social proximity effects of resource deprivation on aggregated and disaggregated homicide counts. Our analyses indicate that local area resource deprivation contributes to violence in socially proximate communities, an effect that, in the case of instrumental homicides, is stronger when such communities are spatially proximate. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for theories focused on community-level social processes and violence, and for policies aimed at reducing crime in disadvantaged areas. [source]


INDUSTRIAL SHIFT, POLARIZED LABOR MARKETS AND URBAN VIOLENCE: MODELING THE DYNAMICS BETWEEN THE ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION AND DISAGGREGATED HOMICIDE,

CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2004
KAREN F. PARKER
Industrial restructuring marks the removal of a manufacturing and production-based economy in urban areas, which had served as a catalyst in concentrating disadvantage and polarizing labor markets since the 1970s. Although scholars have established a relationship between concentrated disadvantage , poverty, joblessness, racial residential segregation , and urban violence in cross-sectional studies, this literature has yet to estimate whether economic restructuring contributed to the change in urban homicide over time. Modeling this relationship requires an analytical strategy that incorporates specific indicators of (race and gender) polarized labor markets, separate from indicators of urban disadvantage, on disaggregated homicides while taking into account the growing dependency of urban cities on formal social control (via police presence and rise in incarceration). In this study I provide a theoretical rationale for linking industrial restructuring to urban homicide. Using a multivariate strategy to capture the shift in labor market forces and disaggregated homicides from 1980 to 1990, I also estimate the impact of this relationship. The results provide evidence of the industrial ship and documents both the decline in Manufacturing jobs for black males and black females and a growth in the service sector opportunities for white males only. I also find that industrial restructuring had a unique impact on disaggregated homicide beyond what has previously been established in cross-sectional studies. [source]


The Language That Came Down the Hill: Slang, Crime, and Citizenship in Rio de Janeiro

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2009
Jennifer Roth-Gordon
ABSTRACT, In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the register of slang has historically been embraced to forge salient social and spatial distinctions, demarcating the physical space of the favela (shantytown) and naturalizing the exclusion of its residents. In this article, I examine the ongoing enregisterment of slang in Rio's current context of profound social inequality, democratic instability, heightened urban violence, and geographic proximity. Within this climate of fear and insecurity, newly vulnerable and newly marginalized city residents draw on and reify salient speech repertoires to negotiate rights to the city and to the nation-state that have become increasingly threatened along socioeconomic, racial, and residential lines. I argue that the enregisterment of slang constructs newly emergent citizenship categories that both challenge and reinforce Brazil's entrenched regime of differentiated citizenship, illuminating the productive role of linguistic differentiation in the modern nation-state. [Keywords: slang, crime, citizenship, marginality, Brazil] [source]


Toward a peaceable paradigm: Seeking Innate wellness in communities and impacts on urban violence and crime

NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2007
Roger C. Mills
First page of article [source]


More carrots than sticks: Antanas Mockus's civic culture policy in Bogotá

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT, Issue 125 2010
Felipe Cala Buendía
The son of a Lithuanian artist, Antanas Mockus was the president of the National University in Colombia before he became mayor of Bogotá in 1995. As mayor, he transformed the city into a huge classroom, not only bringing to his administration a new view of governing but also transforming the way people exercised their citizenship. Mockus resorted to a creative communicative and pedagogical effort to change the citizens' hearts and minds in favor of peaceful coexistence and legal compliance. Symbols, metaphors, and humor became the language through which the administration would enforce its measures to deal with urban violence. Unconventional techniques, such as a symbolic vaccine against domestic violence and the use of mimes to control traffic circulation and create a sense of shame among those who committed infractions, helped to stop crime and develop a new sense of citizenship. [source]


Structural Adjustment, Spatial Imaginaries, and "Piracy" in Guatemala's Apparel Industry

ANTHROPOLOGY OF WORK REVIEW, Issue 1 2009
Kedron Thomas
Abstract This article examines how urban violence influences the everyday lives of Guatemalan Maya entrepreneurs who make nontraditional clothing to sell in highland markets and Guatemala City. How urban space is imagined and experienced among apparel producers reflects a process of class differentiation linked to Guatemala's entrance into international trade and legal agreements. Realities of uneven access and unequal resource distribution allow some producers to take advantage of formal markets and official networks in the capital city, while others avoid the city streets out of fear. Such inequalities are obscured when entrepreneurs who benefit from urban connections talk about relative success in terms of a moral division between those who engage in brand piracy and those who do not. In line with an official discourse that blames "pirates," gangs, and other marginalized groups for the country's social and economic ills, apparel producers who do not copy popular brands often view those who do as immoral and illegal. The case study presented here is fruitful ground for theorizing how cultural representations of urban space influence market strategies and moral logics amidst processes of economic and legal restructuring. [source]


Urban paediatric trauma due to stab wounds: an Israeli hospital experience

ACTA PAEDIATRICA, Issue 7 2009
Ibrahim Abu-Kishk
Abstract Objective:, To assess the incidence and types of stab wounds to hospitalized children and adolescents. Subjects:, The sample consisted of patients, age 6,18 years, who were admitted to our hospital with sustained injury between 1991 and 2007. Results:, In total, 83 patients were admitted as a result of penetrating (n = 51) and superficial (n = 32) injuries. Eighty-two were hospitalized, and one was declared dead upon arrival. Only 11 patients were hospitalized during the 1991,2000 period, and 71 during the 2001,2007 period. Ten patients were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU); 23 patients were operated (hospital mortality = 0). Evacuation time (time from injury to hospital) was 10 min (mean time; maximum 35 min). Conclusion:, This study found higher rates of hospitalization compared with those over a decade ago. These rates reflect not only changes in hospitalization trends and/or population growth in the hospital area but also an increase of urban violence. Israeli hospitalization system deals with paediatric trauma effectively, being well trained because of permanent terrorist activity. [source]