The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

Sampson, Robert J. 2012. Great American city: Chicago and the enduring neighborhood effect. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN-13: 9780226734569. pp. 552, $27.50 cloth. Robert J. Sampson’s ...

Great American city: Chicago and the enduring neighborhood effect

Governing through Crime in South AfricaWarum Nationen scheiternGoverning Immigration Through CrimeMafia-LebenScaleDer VorsorgestaatHandbuch JugendkriminalitätThe Crime ConundrumDie SicherheitsgesellschaftDurchbrüche ins Soziale eine Festschrift für Rudolph BauerKriminalitätskontrolle als IndustrieStrafanstalt als BesserungsmaschineDie Vielfalt des RegierensThe Social Sustainability of CitiesGoverning through Crime in South AfricaSurveillance and GovernanceGoverning Through CrimeOrganized crimeDemocratic Theory and Mass IncarcerationCheliax Imperium der Teufel11-SepDefinition und Grenzen der Vorverlagerung von StrafbarkeitMass Incarceration on TrialAlternative CriminologiesGoverning Through Crime : How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of FearCriminal Justice Theory, Volume 26Governing through crime?Laws against strikes. The South African Experience in an international and Comparative PerspectiveIntroduction to critical criminologyGoverning Through Crime in the Northern Territory: Are Criminal Justice System Changes Contributing to Rising Indigenous Imprisonment?After the War on CrimeGoverning Through CrimeInterdisziplinäre RechtsforschungDer CSI-Effekt in DeutschlandThe Contested Politics of MobilityGoverning through Globalised CrimeNeue Theorien des RechtsGoverning Through Globalised CrimeCriminological PerspectivesThe Legal Process and the Promise of Justice

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/nclr.2009.12.1.129

:Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear

We have come a long way from the heady days of the Great Society, when most people seemed to believe that education would solve all of our problems, both intellectual and social The Coleman Report in 1966 cast the first doubts, and Jencks ( Inequality ) and Averch ( How Effective is Schooling? ) in 1972 seemed to make it official: nothing that schools do really makes any difference Considering that we spend more on schools than most other state and local governmental functions combined, this is indeed a dreary state of affairs Fifteen Thousand Hours has the temerity to question our present conventional wisdom It is a study of what things do make a difference in pupil outputs in 12 London inner-city secondary schools In many ways, it is a substantial improvement, methodologically, over previous studies First, it studies not just one output (which has usually been the score on some standardized test),

Fifteen Thousand Hours: Secondary Schools and Their Effects on Children

Neighborhoods and Crime: The Dimensions of Effective Community Control. Robert Bursik , Harold Grasmick

A common response to school violence features the use of security measures to deter serious and violent incidents. However, a second approach, based on school climate theory, suggests that schools exhibiting authoritative school discipline (i.e., high structure and support) might more effectively reduce school disorder. We tested these approaches on less serious, but more frequent, incidents of student victimization—physical, verbal, and relational bullying—using a nationally representative sample of 12- to 18-year-olds. We found that students in schools with positive school climates, as based on authoritative discipline theory, were significantly less likely to report bullying victimization. The security measures approach had no association with physical and verbal bullying and only a marginal association on relational bullying.

Preventing School Bullying: Should Schools Prioritize an Authoritative School Discipline Approach Over Security Measures?

In this article we identify social communities among gang members in the Hollenbeck policing district in Los Angeles, based on sparse observations of a combination of social interactions and geographic locations of the individuals. This information, coming from Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Field Interview cards, is used to construct a similarity graph for the individuals. We use spectral clustering to identify clusters in the graph, corresponding to communities in Hollenbeck, and compare these with the LAPD's knowledge of the individuals' gang membership. We discuss different ways of encoding the geosocial information using a graph structure and the influence on the resulting clusterings. Finally we analyze the robustness of this technique with respect to noisy and incomplete data, thereby providing suggestions about the relative importance of quantity versus quality of collected data.

Community Detection Using Spectral Clustering on Sparse Geosocial Data

In this article we identify social communities among gang members in the Hollenbeck policing district in Los Angeles, based on sparse observations of a combination of social interactions and geographic locations of the individuals. This information, coming from LAPD Field Interview cards, is used to construct a similarity graph for the individuals. We use spectral clustering to identify clusters in the graph, corresponding to communities in Hollenbeck, and compare these with the LAPD's knowledge of the individuals' gang membership. We discuss different ways of encoding the geosocial information using a graph structure and the influence on the resulting clusterings. Finally we analyze the robustness of this technique with respect to noisy and incomplete data, thereby providing suggestions about the relative importance of quantity versus quality of collected data.

Community detection using spectral clustering on sparse geosocial data

Mixed land use and neighborhood crime

Although theories posit that some types of local institutions will have a crime-producing influence in neighborhoods while others will have the opposite effect, the empirical evidence is far from conclusive. Previous studies are typically limited to analyzing cross-sectional data and one type of institution. Using longitudinal data of the number of employees of various institutions within census tracts across nine U.S. cities, the present study examines the longitudinal impact of four types of institutions on violent and property crime. Negative binomial regression models suggest that alcohol outlets and banking establishments increase criminal opportunities, whereas “third places” like coffee shops and cafes induce efficacious neighborhood control and social action. Civic and social organizations have no statistical relationship with crime.

James C. Wo

Papers

Preventing School Bullying: Should Schools Prioritize an Authoritative School Discipline Approach Over Security Measures?

Community Detection Using Spectral Clustering on Sparse Geosocial Data

Community detection using spectral clustering on sparse geosocial data

Mixed land use and neighborhood crime

Community Context of Crime A Longitudinal Examination of the Effects of Local Institutions on Neighborhood Crime