Environmental criminology and mapping hot spot bus stop locations: A social ecological approach for conducting a quasi-experimental design and testing defensible space concepts

Physical disorder can contribute to the growth of social disorder. Reciprocally, social disorder inhibits interaction and a sense of collective cohesiveness among residents. As social cohesion decreases, incivilities increase. Incivilities attract potential offenders to place specific areas where cohesiveness is low. Perhaps nowhere is this phenomenon more prevalent than urban area bus stop locations where routine activities bring strangers and potential offenders together in space and time. A key research question is whether areas that contain bus stop locations play a role in escalated crime when controlling for other block group ecological characteristics that surround the location.; There were three main parts to this research project. (1) A modified structural equation model tests the Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls (1997) collective efficacy hypothesis with 2000 census data, two years of criminal incident data (1999--2000) and 114 block groups as the unit of analysis. This model tested the significance of social disorder on crime through the mediation of collective efficacy as hypothesized by Sampson et al., (1997). (2) Within those block groups 638 bus stop locations were mapped using ArcView 8.1 mapping software. Areas that were significantly similar in terms of social disorder variables were matched with non-bus stop locations serving as the control. Findings from the quasi-experimental design indicated that bus stop locations were more highly correlated to criminal incidents than non bus stop locations when controlling for relevant social disorganization characteristics. (3) Defensible space and crime pattern concepts were analyzed qualitatively through systematic observations of hot spot bus stop locations. Crime mapping software was utilized to determine the main hot spot bus stop locations. These locations were qualitatively analyzed through nonparticipatory systematic observations in terms of defensible space concepts in an effort to determine why these bus stop locations attract a disproportionate amount of crime clustering. Each bus stop was rated through a series of windshield surveys according to a predesigned checklist that served as an auditing process for the presence or absence of defensible space concepts at the bus stops. These checklists allowed for a systematic process that enhanced reliability since identical observations can be repeated at later dates by future researchers.