CJ 653

Communities and Crime

This course explores community-level theory and research within criminology. We will trace the development of community-level criminological theory and research from the work of Shaw and McKay to the work of contemporary scholars. Our tracing of this development will involve exploration of theoretical and methodological issues such as: the conceptualization and measurement of social disorganization, structural versus cultural effects in community models, social versus physical environmental effects, the role of community disorder in community crime models, the role of fear in community crime models, macro-level interactions within community-level models of crime, and use of theoretical integration and multi-level models in community crime research

Units: 3.0