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Broken Windows Theory
In criminology, the broken windows theory states that visible signs of crime, antisocial behavior and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes. The theory suggests that policing methods that target minor crimes, such as vandalism, loitering, public drinking and fare evasion, help to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness. The theory was introduced in a 1982 article by conservative think tanks social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. It was popularized in the 1990s by New York City police commissioner William Bratton, whose policing policies were influenced by the theory. The theory became subject to debate both within the social sciences and the public sphere. Broken windows policing has been enforced with controversial police practices, such as the high use of stop-and-frisk in New York City in the decade up to 2013. Article and crime prevention James Q. Wilson and George L. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Urban Sociology
Urban sociology is the sociological study of cities and urban life. One of the field’s oldest sub-disciplines, urban sociology studies and examines the social, historical, political, cultural, economic, and environmental forces that have shaped urban environments. Like most areas of sociology, urban sociologists use statistical analysis, observation, archival research, census data, social theory, interviews, and other methods to study a range of topics, including poverty, racial residential segregation, economic development, migration and demographic trends, gentrification, homelessness, blight and crime, urban decline, and neighborhood changes and revitalization. Urban sociological analysis provides critical insights that shape and guide urban planning and policy-making. The philosophical foundations of modern urban sociology originate from the work of sociologists such as Karl Marx, Ferdinand Tönnies, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber and Georg Simmel who studied and theorized t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Land Use
Land use is an umbrella term to describe what happens on a parcel of land. It concerns the benefits derived from using the land, and also the land management actions that humans carry out there. The following categories are used for land use: forest land, cropland ( agricultural land), grassland, wetlands, settlements and other lands. The way humans use land, and how land use is changing, has many impacts on the environment. Effects of land use choices and changes by humans include, for example, urban sprawl, soil erosion, soil degradation, land degradation and desertification. Land use and land management practices have a major impact on natural resources including water, soil, nutrients, plants and animals. ''Land use change'' is "the change from one land-use category to another". Land-use change, together with use of fossil fuels, are the major anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide, a dominant greenhouse gas. Human activity is the most significant cause of land c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vigilante
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating, and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority. A vigilante is a person who practices or partakes in vigilantism, or undertakes public safety and retributive justice without commission. Definition The term is borrowed from Italian , which means 'sentinel' or 'watcher', from Latin . According to political scientist Regina Bateson, vigilantism is "the extralegal prevention, investigation, or punishment of offenses." The definition has three components: # Extralegal: Vigilantism is done outside of the law (not necessarily in violation of the law) # Prevention, investigation, or punishment: Vigilantism requires specific actions, not just attitudes or beliefs # Offense: Vigilantism is a response to a perceived crime or violation of an authoritative norm Other scholars have defined "collective vigilantism" as "group violence to punish perceived offenses to a community." Les Johnston argues that vigilant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Informal Social Control
Informal social control is the reactions of individuals and groups that bring about conformity to norms and laws. It includes peer and community pressure, bystander intervention in a crime, and collective responses such as citizen patrol groups.Conklin, J. (2007). ''Criminology''. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. The agents of the criminal justice system exercise more control when informal social control is weaker (Black, 1976). It is people who know each other informally controlling each other in subtle ways subconsciously. See also * Social control Social control is the regulations, sanctions, mechanisms, and systems that restrict the behaviour of individuals in accordance with social norms and orders. Through both informal and formal means, individuals and groups exercise social con ... Sources Control (social and political) {{socio-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Group Cohesiveness
Group cohesiveness, also called group cohesion, social harmony or social cohesion, is the degree or strength of bonds linking members of a social group to one another and to the group as a whole. Although cohesion is a multi-faceted process, it can be broken down into four main components: social relations, task relations, perceived unity, and emotions. Members of strongly cohesive groups are more inclined to participate readily and to stay with the group. Definition There are different ways to define group cohesion, depending on how researchers conceptualize this concept. However, most researchers define cohesion to be task commitment and interpersonal attraction to the group. Cohesion can be more specifically defined as the tendency for a group to be in unity while working towards a goal or to satisfy the emotional needs of its members. This definition includes important aspects of cohesiveness, including its multidimensionality, dynamic nature, instrumental basis, and emot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signal Crime
Signal crime is a concept coined by Professor Martin Innes and Professor Nigel Fielding, aiming "to capture the social semiotic processes by which particular types of criminal and disorderly conduct have a disproportionate impact upon fear of crime." The concept was created to aid a policing approach being trialled in the early 2000s by Surrey Police called reassurance policing, which aims to identify "signals", and involve the community in solving community-related problems and is the ascendent to the current 'neighbourhood policing' approach in England and Wales. This approach was developed in order to close the 'reassurance gap'the paradoxical situation in which the public's 'fear of crime' (as measured by the Crime Survey for England and Walespreviously called the British Crime Survey) does not change in tandem with the overall crime rate. The Signal Crimes Perspective contended that fear of crime and people's risk perceptionsthe perceived likelihood of being victimisedwere linke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), or interception of electronically transmitted information like Internet traffic. Increasingly, Government, governments may also obtain Customer data, consumer data through the purchase of online information, effectively expanding surveillance capabilities through commercially available digital records. It can also include simple technical methods, such as Human intelligence (intelligence gathering), human intelligence gathering and postal interception. Surveillance is used by citizens, for instance for protecting their neighborhoods. It is widely used by governments for intelligence gathering, including espionage, prevention of crime, the protection of a process, person, group or object, or the investigat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conformity
Conformity or conformism is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to social group, group norms, politics or being like-minded. Social norm, Norms are implicit, specific rules, guidance shared by a group of individuals, that guide their interactions with others. People often choose to conform to society rather than to pursue personal desires – because it is often easier to follow the path others have made already, rather than forging a new one. Thus, conformity is sometimes a product of group communication. This tendency to conform occurs in small groups and/or in society as a whole and may result from subtle unconscious influences (predisposed mental state, state of mind), or from direct and overt social pressure. Conformity can occur in the presence of others, or when an individual is alone. For example, people tend to follow social norms when eating or when watching television, even if alone. Solomon Asch, a social psychologist whose obedience research remains a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Norm
A social norm is a shared standard of acceptance, acceptable behavior by a group. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into wikt:rule, rules and laws. Social normative influences or social norms, are deemed to be powerful drivers of human behavioural changes and well organized and incorporated by major theories which explain human behaviour. Institutions are composed of multiple norms. Norms are shared social beliefs about behavior; thus, they are distinct from "ideas", "attitudes", and "values", which can be held privately, and which do not necessarily concern behavior. Norms are contingent on context, social group, and historical circumstances. Scholars distinguish between regulative norms (which constrain behavior), constitutive norms (which shape interests), and prescriptive norms (which prescribe what actors ''ought'' to do). The effects of norms can be determined by a logic of appropriateness ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tipping Point
''The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference'' is the debut book by Malcolm Gladwell, first published by Little, Brown in 2000. Gladwell defines a tipping point as "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point." The book seeks to explain and describe the "mysterious" sociological changes that mark everyday life. As Gladwell states: "Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread like viruses do." The examples of such changes in his book include the rise in popularity and sales of Hush Puppies shoes in the mid-1990s and the steep drop in New York City's crime rate after 1990. The three rules Gladwell describes the "three rules of epidemics" (or the three "agents of change") in the tipping points of epidemics. The Law of the Few "The Law of the Few" is, as Gladwell states: "The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts." According to Gladwell, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crime-free
A nuisance ordinance, also referred to as a crime-free ordinance or a disorderly house ordinance, is a local law usually passed on the town, city, or municipality level of government that aims to legally punish both landlords and tenants for crimes that occur on a property or in a neighborhood. These laws impose penalties under programs referred to as nuisance abatement when crimes are reported, regardless of whether crimes actually occurred or what the police action entailed. The result of these ordinances is for landlords to tell tenants to not report crimes, refuse to renew the lease of anyone involved in reporting a crime, and eviction of tenants involved in any crimes, even if the tenants were the victims of said crimes. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), while supporters of these ordinances argue that they prevent criminal activities in the areas under the ordinances, the actual result is instead a reduction in overall public safety and harm brought to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
