Crime in Cities: The Effects of Formal and Informal Social Control

This study examines the structural determinants of robbery and homicide offending in 171 American cities with a population greater than 100,000 in 1980. A macro-level social control model is presented that focuses on the consequences for formal and informal social control of police aggressiveness, jail incarceration risk, state incarceration, and family structure. Controlling for known determinants of crime rates such as poverty, inequality, and racial composition, the general question posed is, Do variations in criminal justice sanctions and the structural arrangement of families influence criminal behavior? To disentangle possible confounding effects of city composition in terms of demographic attributes, crime rates were disaggregated by age, race, and sex of offender. At least three major conclusions emerged. First, local official sanctions appear to have significant deterrent effects on robbery offending: cities with a high risk of jail incarceration produce disproportionately low robbery rates regardless of both demographic attributes of offenders and other known determinants of criminality. Cities where the police make frequent arrests for public order offenses (e. g., disorderly conduct and driving under the influence) tend to have significantly lower rates of black adult robbery. In addition, cities located in states with a high risk of imprisonment tend to have lower rates of juvenile robbery offending. Second, the empirical results demonstrate the importance of family and marital disruption as determinants of both robbery and homicide. In general, cities with a high percentage of black and white households comprised of a married-couple family have low rates of black and white juvenile offending, respectively, while the divorce rate exhibits a strong positive effect on adult offending. Finally, the results confirm traditional sociological concerns with economic stratification, as cities characterized by racial income inequality, poverty, and low occupational status were shown to have significantly higher rates of robbery and homicide.