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Should We Police Disorder? a Local Level Examination of the Spatial SHOULD WE POLICE DISORDER? A LOCAL LEVEL EXAMINATION OF THE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL ASPECTS OF THE BROKEN WINDOWS THEORY _____________ A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology Sam Houston State University _____________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _____________ by Di Jia May, 2018 SHOULD WE POLICE DISORDER? A LOCAL LEVEL EXAMINATION OF THE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL ASPECTS OF THE BROKEN WINDOWS THEORY by Di Jia ______________ APPROVED: Larry T. Hoover, PhD Dissertation Director Jurg Gerber, PhD Committee Member Yan Zhang, PhD Committee Member Philip Lyons, PhD Dean, College of Criminal Justice DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my deceased grandmother Shihui Shen and my uncle Wei Hao, who always had high hopes for me and fully supported me. I miss them so much. I will remember them forever. In addition, I also dedicate this study to my mother Ming Hao, my husband Weining Che, and my friend Dr. David Webb. They all brought love and lights to my life. Without their help and support during my hard time, this dissertation would have been impossible to complete. Thank you and I love you. iii ABSTRACT Jia, Di, Should we police disorder? A local level examination of the spatial and temporal aspects of the Broken Windows Theory. Doctor of Philosophy (Criminal Justince), May, 2018, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas. In 1982, Wilson and Kelling introduced the Broken Windows theory (BWT) arguing that policing neighborhood disorder would reduce serious crime while enhancing the quality of life in neighborhoods. However, the questions and critiques of this theory continue today. On the one hand, empirical research testing on this theory has produced mixed or inconsistent results, while on the other, policing disorder activities created more tasks for the police. In order to place these critiques in their proper context, this study utilizes large-scale operational data—two years (2010-2011) of call for police service data from the Houston Police Department (HPD). A Geographical Weighted Regression (GWR) model is employed to examine the spatial and temporal relationships between itemized disorder issues, and reported violent and property crimes. The results of global models show that the residents’ reported disorder issues in the neighborhood are significantly related to violent and property crimes with limited temporal effects. However, the GWR model indicates significant spatial effects on reported minor offenses and the crime links, and those effects vary for individual minor offenses. Since the relationships between minor offenses and neighborhood crime vary, three models should be applied to categorize social disorder policing: pro-active, supervision, and liaison. KEY WORDS: Broken Windows, Disorder, Crime, Disorder Policing, Geographic Weighted Regression iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is well known that the Ph.D. program is exceptionally challenging and stressful, especially for international students. I would like to personally record my sincere gratitude to the following people who have supported me in my dissertation development and more. To all the committee members who mentor and supervise my dissertation, you deserve my appreciation for your continuous encouragement and massive help during past year. I’d like to give my sincere thanks to my committee chair, Dr. Larry T. Hoover. I will always remember his inspiring and encouraging words. Likewise, I would also like to give my sincere thanks to Dr. Jurg Gerber. I am very glad to have had the opportunity to work with Dr. Gerber and I really enjoyed and benefited from this process. Your kindness, intelligence and humor will always enlighten my life. Also, Dr. Yan Zhang’s contribution to my academic achievement and portfolio development can never be ignored. She provided me with critical support and valuable guidance in both research subjects and methodologies for my dissertation. I do believe that the exceptional mentorship of my dissertation committee will sculpture a successful starting point for my future academic career as well as inspiring my personal life. Last but not least, my sincere appreciation goes to Dr. Danielle L. Boisvert, Dr. Steven Cuvelier, Dr. Mitchel Roth, and all the professors have helped me to develop the fundamental and essential academic competence. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ v TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ x CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1 II LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................... 14 Review of Theoretical Origins of Broken Windows Theory ................................ 14 Review of the Broken Windows Theory and its development ............................. 22 Review of Empirical Studies on the Broken Windows Theory ............................ 37 III METHODOLOGIES ............................................................................................ 60 Research area/location—Houston ......................................................................... 60 Data ....................................................................................................................... 62 Measurements ....................................................................................................... 66 Analysis................................................................................................................. 69 IV RESULTS ............................................................................................................. 74 Overview of the Data ............................................................................................ 74 Results of bivariate correlations and multivariate regressions analyses ............... 79 Results of Multivariate Regression ....................................................................... 85 vi Summary ............................................................................................................... 92 The diagnostics of global models of violent crime and property crime ............... 94 GWR Models for Violent Crime and Property Crime .......................................... 97 V DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................... 150 Main Findings ..................................................................................................... 150 Research and Policy implications ....................................................................... 154 Limitation That Needs to Be Focus on Future Research .................................... 165 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 169 APPENDIX ..................................................................................................................... 194 VITA ............................................................................................................................... 196 vii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1 The Measurements of Disorder Predictors ........................................................... 67 2 Principle-Components Analysis on Social Structure Components: Concentrated Disadvantages, Immigrants Concentration, and Residential Stability (Data are from 2010 census) .................................................................. 68 3 Descriptive Statistics for Violent Crime, and Property Crime incidents in 2010 and Total incidents in Four Time Progressions as Dependent Variables; Residents-Initialed Disorder Issues in 2010 from Police Calls for Service Data as Independent Variables and the Selective Neighborhood social constructors from 2010 U.S. Census Data. ........................................................... 78 4 Bivariate Correlations between Itemized Disorders and Social Components ...... 82 5 Bivariate Correlations between Violent Crime, Itemized Disorders and Social Components .......................................................................................................... 83 6 Bivariate Correlations between Property Crime, Itemized Disorders and Social Components ............................................................................................... 84 7 Coefficients from Multivariate Regression Analysis Predicting Temporal Associations between Violent Crime Incident Rates (2010-2011), Itemized Disorder Rates by Type from Calls for Service Data 2010 and Neighborhood Social Components from 2010 Census in Houston .............................................. 88 8 Coefficients from Multivarate Regression Analysis Predicitng Temporal Associations between Property Crime Incident Rates (2010-2011), Itemized viii
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