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Social Disorganization Theory Paper

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Variables The dependent variable, reported to police, is coded 1 for incidents that were reported to police by either the victim or a member of their household and 0 for incidents not reported. Social disorganization theory guided the construction of the primary explanatory variable. It is comprised of five separate indicators, all related to what I term: “household disadvantage.” These five indicators are: (1) the number of households with incomes below the poverty line, (2) the number of households that are considered public housing, (3) the number of households headed by a single parent, (4) the number of structures composed of five or more housing units, and (5) the number of households with residents who have not resided in the same home …show more content…

Specifically, the likelihood of reporting has been found to increase with age (Baumer, 2002; Baumer & Lauritsen, 2010; Bosick et al., 2012; Finkelhor & Ormrod, 2001; Finkelhor & Wolak, 2003; Finkelhor, Ormrod, Turner, & Hamby, 2012; Rennison et al., 2011; Weiss, 2013) and be more common for crimes against female victims than male victims (Bosick et al., 2012; Finkelhor & Ormrod, 2001; Finkelhor & Wolak, 2003; Finkelhor et al., 2012; Watkins 2005). Moreover, evidence suggests that Black victims are slightly more likely than Whites to notify police of their violent victimizations (Bosick et al., 2012; Finkelhor & Ormrod, 2001; Finkelhor & Wolak, 2003; Finkelhor et al., 2012; Rennison et al. 2011; Watkins, 2006). In this study, the race/ethnicity, gender, and age of the victim as well as the age and gender of the offender are included as controls. Race/ethnicity of the victim is measured using four dummy-coded (1=yes, 0=no) categories: 1) White non-Hispanic, 2) Black non-Hispanic, 3) Hispanic of any race, and 4) other race. In the multivariate model, White serves as the excluded reference category. Victim’s age is a dichotomous variable that is included as a measure for the overall sample (i.e., outside of the juvenile and adult subsets). Victims aged 12-17 are coded 1, while victims 18 and over are coded 0. For the juvenile …show more content…

To account for the number of offenders, a dichotomous variable is used to distinguish incidents involving multiple offenders (coded 1) and those involving a lone offender (coded 0). Bystander presence is treated as a dummy variable with victimizations occurring in the presence of another person coded one and those that were not coded zero. Finally, the location of the incident is indicated by whether or not the victimizations transpired in a private location such as the victim’s home (coded 1) or in a public location such as a school or parking lot (coded 0) as well as whether victims were assaulted within one mile of their residence (coded one) or assaulted at a further distance (within-neighborhood incident). Also, it is worth noting that while other studies have accounted for the victim’s marital status and/or education level, such variables are omitted from the present study (Baumer, 2002; Baumer and Lauritsen 2010; Finkelhor & Wolak, 2003; Watkins, 2005). This is largely due to the fact that this sample consists of juveniles, a majority of whom were single or possessed an education level of a high school diploma or less at the time of the interview. Since there was no variation among these characteristics for the juvenile subset, I deemed it unnecessary to control for

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