This is the major project required during the completion of my Graduate Certificate in Geographic Information Sciences. Please read through it. You will find it interesting as a writing sample and as examples of types of data analysis and research I produce.

1. Juvenile Arrests and Neighborhood Characteristics GISC 6387 Norris Stough University of Texas at Dallas Summer 2005

2. Literature Review The characteristics of areas in which juvenile criminal activity occurs and develops have long been of interest to sociologists and criminal studies. Much of this interest has focused on a variety of economic and socio-economic measures that characterize areas of high criminal activity in an effort to demonstrate a causal relationship between economic and social status and crime. Theorists such as Wirth (1938) and Banfield (1967) have observed that the traditional social organizations of a rural society break down in increasingly urbanized concentrations of population; suggesting that areas of concentrated population will be characterized by higher levels of social disorganization.

3. Literature Review – cont. In a classic study, Shaw and McKay (1942) argued that low economic status is a primary cause of the social disorganization leading to high rates of juvenile delinquency. The geographic relationship between areas of concentrated poverty and social problems such as delinquency has been offered as evidence of this link between economic status and crime; suggesting that the geographic concentration of poverty causes the concentration of criminal activity in poor neighborhoods (Massey, Condran and Denton 1987). Decades before the development of geographic information systems capable of exploring spatial relationships, individuals such as St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton (1945) and Wilson (1987) published maps revealing the relationship between concentrations of poverty and social problems such as juvenile delinquency (Massey 1996).

4. Literature Review – cont. Sociologists such as Massey (1996) and Sampson, Raudenbush and Earls (1997) make a convincing argument that the twentieth century has been characterized by increasing urbanization in general, increasing concentrations of the poor within the urban population and more importantly, an increasing spatial segregation of the non-affluent from the affluent. They make the case for a connection between these areas of concentrated populations of the poor with high levels of social disorganization characterized by higher incidences of crime Massey quantifies this spatial separation of the non-affluent from the affluent in a measure called the Index of Concentration of Extremes (2001).

5. Literature Review – cont. Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls (1997) explored the relationship between the social disorganization expected from increasing urbanized populations and a variety of measures (receipt of public assistance, unemployment, black residents, female-headed households with children, etc.) quantified by a measure referred to as Concentrated Disadvantage. Their research, though purely statistical, demonstrates the clear relationship between this measure and increased incidences of crime (homicides). Morenoff, Sampson and Raudenbush (1999) revisited the 1997 Sampson, Raudenbush and Earls study, replicating their study but with the addition of spatial measures of the correlation between the Index of Concentration of Extremes and Concentrated Disadvantage and areas of increased incidences of crime (homicides).

6. Literature Review – cont. Their research again confirmed the relationship between Concentrated Disadvantage and increased criminal activity. This study included the Index of Concentrated Extremes as well and confirmed the relationship between this measure of economic disadvantage and criminal activity. Additionally, the spatial analysis demonstrated a relationship between areas of Concentrated Disadvantage and the Index of Concentrated Extremes and surrounding areas with similar values. The project explores explores those relationships as well, but with regard to the incidence of juvenile arrests in Dallas County, Texas between 1997 and 2003.

7. Project Objective If Concentrated Disadvantage and the Index of Concentrated Extremes are valid measures of expected juvenile crime activity, then this project will demonstrate that juvenile arrests cluster within areas with high Concentrated Disadvantage scores and low Index of Concentrated Extremes scores.

12. Analysis

14. Chart NNI Concentrated Disadvantage Less Clustered – More Clustered

15. Chart NNI ICE Less Clustered – More Clustered

17. Chart Absolute Moran’s I Score More Clustered – Less Clustered

18. Chart Moran’s I Score More Clustering – Less Clustering – More Clustering

20. LISA Cluster Map of Concentrated Disadvantage

21. Chart Concentrated Disadvantage

22. Chart Nearest Neighbor Concentrated Disadvantage LISA Relationship

23. LISA Cluster Map of Index of Concentrated Extremes

24. Chart ICE

25. Chart Nearest Neighbor ICE LISA Relationship

27. Arrests Per Capita v. Concentrated Disadvantage Score

28. Arrests Per Capita v. Index of Concentrated Extremes

31. References Banfield, E.C. 1967. The Moral Basis of a Backward Society. New York: Free Press. Drake, St.C. and H.R. Cayton. 1945. Black Metropolis: A Study of Life in a Northern City. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Massey, Douglas S. 1996. “The Age of Extremes: Concentrated Affluence and Poverty in the Twenty-First Century.” Demography 33:395-412. Massey, Douglas S. 2001. “The Prodigal Paradigm Returns: Ecology Comes Back to Sociology.” Pp. 41-48 in Does It Take a Village? Community Effects on Children, Adolescents, and Families , edited by Alan Booth and Ann Crouter. Mahway, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Massey, Douglas S., G.A Condran, and N.A. Denton. 1987. “The Effect of Residential Segregation on Black Social and Economic Well-Being.” Social Forces 66:29-57 Morenoff, Jeffrey D. Robert J. Sampson and Stephen W. Raudenbush. 2001. “Neighborhood Inequality, Collective Efficacy, and the Spatial Dynamics of Urban Violence.” Ann Arbor: Population Studies Center, University of Michigan Shaw, Clifford and Henry McKay. 1942. (1969, 2 nd edition). Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

32. References (continued) Sampson, Robert J. Stephen Raudenbush and Felton Earls. 1997. “Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy.” Science 277:918-924 Wilson, William Julius. 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass,and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Wirth, L. 1938. “Urbanism as a Way of Life.” American Journal of Sociology 44:3-24.