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The Effect of Social Cohesion on Levels of Recorded Crime in Disadvantaged Areas

Urban Research and Policy Evaluation Regional Research Laboratory, Department of Civic Design, University of Liverpool, P. O. Box 147, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK.hirsch{at}liverpool.ac.uk

K.J. Bowers

Urban Research and Policy Evaluation Regional Research Laboratory, Department of Civic Design, University of Liverpool, P. O. Box 147, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK. KJ.Bowers{at}liverpool.ac.uk

This paper investigates the hypothesis that the level of crime in disadvantaged areas will be influenced by their levels of social cohesion. This issue is examined using two methods for delineating areas of disadvantage (geodemographic classifications and the British government's official deprivation measure, the Index of Local Conditions) and two independent components of social cohesion, one defines the level of 'social control' in an area and the other identifies 'ethnic heterogeneity'. The results suggest that levels of crime are significantly lower than expected in disadvantaged areas with high levels of social cohesion and vice versa. A complementary analysis of Homewatch schemes revealed that such schemes lead to reduced levels of burglary in affluent areas, but appear to have the opposite effect to that desired in more disadvantaged areas.

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