TABLE A3.
Social and physical environments
| Community constructs | Indicators | Data source |
|---|---|---|
| Anonymity (Hipp et al., 2009) | Population density | US Census |
| Concentration of registered sex offenders (Mustaine, Tewksbury, Huff-Corzine, Corzine, & Marshall, 2014) | Number of registered sex offenders divided by the total population of the census tract and multiplied by 1,000 to calculate a standardized rate | Department of Corrections Sex Offender Registry |
| Crime-prone population (Cancino, Martinez, & Stowell, 2009) | Share of population composed of males between ages of 18–34 | US Census |
| Density of street gang activity (Robinson et al., 2009) | Number of African American and Latino street gangs that existed within a 2-mile radius of each zip code’s population-weighted geographic centroid | Ethnographic and observational field research |
| Ethnic heterogeneity (Pizarro & McGloin, 2006) | Number of different ethnic or racial groups that resided in the census tract | US Census |
| Immigration (Martinez, Stowell, & Lee, 2010) | Percent of the population born outside of the United States | US Census |
| Neighborhood abandonment (Hipp et al., 2009) | Proportion of occupied units (reverse coded) | US Census |
| Neighborhood aesthetics (Lovasi et al., 2013) | Sidewalk cafes: Locations of one or more legally operating sidewalk cafes by zip code; | City Department of Consumer Affairs, City Department of Parks and Recreation, and Project Scorecard conducted by Mayor’s Office |
| Street trees: Density of street trees per square kilometer; | ||
| Clean streets: Proportion of streets rated as acceptably clean (as informed by the Department of Sanitation’s standards and public surveys)a | ||
| Neighborhood condition (O’Shea, 2006) | Physical deterioration: e.g., abandoned or unkempt housing | Observational environmental survey |
| Incivilities: e.g., litter and vandalism | ||
| Vulnerability: e.g., dark and empty streets | ||
| Territoriality: e.g., decorating one’s yard or putting one’s name on a door | ||
| Defensible space: e.g., adequate lighting, surveillance opportunities, and barriers to entry | ||
| Disorder incidents (O’Shea, 2006) | Counts of calls for service to respond to shots fired, disorder, fight, harassment, loud noise, and suspicious person or activity | Observational environmental survey |
| Neighborhood dilapidation (Limbos & Casteel, 2008) | Index of visible graffiti, painted over graffiti, litter, cleanliness, dilapidated buildings, and dilapidated streets and sidewalks | Neighborhood environmental survey |
| Neighborhood heterogeneity (Mares, 2010) | Index of the percentage foreign born resident and percentage of the tract population that speaks either an entirely different language or also uses another language on top of English | US Census |
| Physical environment as a risk factor for crime (Heslin, Robinson, Baker, & Gelberg, 2007) | Proximity to skid row, median income, percent of population of racial/ethnic minority backgrounds, percent of land area in industrial use, percent of land area in commercial use, and total population | US Census |
| Population heterogeneity (Martinez et al., 2008) | Latino percentage of the population, percentage of the population who immigrated within the past 10 years, and percentage of households that are “linguistically isolated” | US Census |
| Population density (Morenoff et al., 2001) | Number of persons per square kilometer | US Census |
| Population structure (Messner, Baumer, & Rosenfeld, 2004) | Population size and density | US Census |
| Racial/ethnic concentration (Cubbin, LeClere, & Smith, 2000) | Black: Proportion of all persons who are Black | US Census |
| Hispanic: Proportion of all persons who are Hispanic | ||
| Residential instability (Beyer, Layde, Hamberger, & Laud (2013) | Proportion of individuals living in a different house than they had 5 years before | US Census Bureau and US Department of Agriculture |
| Residential mobility (Kubrin, 2003) | Percentage of persons ages 5 and over who have changed residences in the past 5 years | US Census |
| Residential stability (Li et al., 2010) | Percentage of households staying in the same residence for at least 5 years | US Census |
| Social and physical disorder (Messer, Maxson, & Miranda, 2013) | Housing damage: Boarded door, holes in walls, roof damage, chimney damage, foundation damage, entry damage, door damage, peeling paint, fire damage, condemned, boarded windows, broken windows | Community assessment projectb |
| Security measures: Block-level proportion of security bars, barbed wire, no trespassing signs, beware of dog signs, security signs, and fencing | ||
| Nuisances: Shopping carts, total drug paraphernalia, inoperable car, food garbage, dog waste, tree debris, discarded furniture, discarded appliances, large trash, batteries, condoms, fallen wire, broken manhole cover, uncovered drain, cigarette butts, alcohol container, clothes, baby diapers, construction debris, deep holes, standing water, litter, broken glass, high weeds, graffiti | ||
| Property disorder: Cars on lawn, no grass, standing water, litter, garbage, broken glass, discarded furniture, discarded appliances, discarded tires, inoperable vehicle, high weeds | ||
| Social deprivation (Wu, 2009) | Percentage of foreign-born residents, percentage of linguistic isolation, and percentage of renters in an area | US Census |
| Social disorganization (Kaylen & Pridemore, 2011) | Residential instability: Proportion of households occupied by people who moved from another dwelling in the preceding 5 years | US Census |
| Ethnic heterogeneity: Diversity index calculating the probability of two randomly chosen individuals (from county) being from different ethnic groups | ||
| Family disruption: Ratio of female-headed households to all households with children | ||
| Poverty: Percent of residents living under the poverty level | ||
| Population density: Population at risk for violent victimization (in our case, county populations of those aged 10–17 and 15–24) as a proxy | ||
| Urbanization (Pizarro & McGloin, 2006) | Population size | US Census |
| Vacancy rate (Papachristos, Hureau, & Braga, 2013) | Percentage vacant housing | US Census |
a
Multiple indicators that represent some form of an index are formatted with the prefix “index of”; constructs that are represented by multiple sub-constructs are underlined and indices are separated by semi-colons; otherwise, multiple indicators that are not part of an index are separated by commas.
b
Data can be collected through observational assessment.