Objectives:

Explanations of community violence traditionally reflect a social disorganization perspective, suggesting that neighborhood characteristics affect crime via the intervening mechanism of informal social control. Drawing on Agnew’s Macro Strain Theory [MST], we argue that neighborhood characteristics 1) also affect macro-level crime for reasons related to aggregated strain and 2) condition the relationship between micro-level strains and individual violent offending.

Methods:

Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, we conduct a series of multilevel models examining both the macro- and multi-level relationship between neighborhood characteristics, strain and youth violence.

Findings:

Results generally support our arguments, suggesting that neighborhood characteristics like concentrated disadvantage 1) remain associated with community violence even after adjusting for multiple measures of informal social control and 2) condition the association between micro-level strain and violent offending.

Conclusions:

Strain processes, at both the macro and micro-level, play a critical role in the well-established empirical relationship between structural disadvantage and violence. In light of results, community crime control policies should address the ways in which structural disadvantage increases motivation, rather than focusing exclusively on the ways in which it weakens informal social control.

中文翻译：

---

社会混乱和压力：对青年暴力的宏观和微观影响

目标：

传统上，对社区暴力的解释反映了社会混乱的观点，表明邻里特征通过非正式社会控制的干预机制影响犯罪。借鉴Agnew的宏观应变理论[MST]，我们认为邻里特征1）也由于与总应变相关的原因而影响宏观犯罪，并且2）限制了微观应变与个人暴力犯罪之间的关系。

方法：

利用芝加哥社区人类发展项目的数据，我们进行了一系列多层次的模型研究，考察了社区特征，压力和青年暴力之间的宏观和多层次关系。

发现：

结果总体上支持我们的论点，表明邻国特征（如集中的不利条件）1）即使在针对非正式社会控制的多种措施进行调整后仍与社区暴力相关； 2）限制了微观压力与暴力犯罪之间的关联。

结论：

宏观和微观的应变过程在结构性劣势与暴力之间建立的经验关系中都起着至关重要的作用。根据结果​​，社区犯罪控制政策应解决结构性劣势增加动机的方式，而不是仅仅关注削弱非正式社会控制的方式。