1. Britney Rossi
Undergraduate Student
Criminology, Law and Society
University of California, Irvine
The Distribution of Crime in Relation to
Social Services & Government Entities in
Los Angeles County

2. Background
o Collective efficacy is the idea that social cohesion among neighbors
combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the
community is linked to reduced violence in that neighborhood
o Sociological research has asserted that social institutions are the
key to crime reduction in that they provide people with social
cohesion that help keep people off the streets and prevent
engagement in criminal activity
o This study tested whether the presence of social programs provided
social cohesion to tracts/neighborhoods in Los Angeles County
correlating to lower levels of crime
o Anticipated an inverse relationship between crime rates and social
programs in Los Angeles tracts, with lower crime rates in areas
with a greater presence of social services, and higher crime rates in
tracts with lower prevalence of social programs

3. Methodology
 Professor Hipp has collected and mapped crime rates from
census tracts throughout Los Angeles County based on total
UCR Part I crimes from 2014
 UCR Part I crimes include murder and non-negligent
homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary,
motor vehicle theft, larceny-theft, and arson
 This study collected in an excel spreadsheet on the coordinate
locations of employment-help services, welfare services,
homeless shelters, government entities, police stations,
substance abuse programs, mental health programs, and
probation offices across Los Angeles County County from
research on the internet, largely from the Los Angeles County
government website (https://www.lacounty.gov)

4. Methodology
 Using ArcGIS, the latitude/longitude coordinates collected on
social program locations in Los Angeles County, the program
projected an individual point on the map for each
organization/program
 The LA city crime data (at the census tract level of analysis) was
projected onto the same map, representing the total UCR Part I
crimes (year 2014) as graduated colors
 A "base" layer was created representing crime frequencies and a
"top" layer representing the locations of each social service entity

5. Most employment and
welfare service programs
were located in areas of
higher crime (represented
by pink and dark gray
tracts)
Includes:
• Food assistance
• Job training
• Unemployment
assistance
• Public housing
• Welfare offices

6. Includes:
• Crime prevention
agencies
• Government
buildings
• Courthouses
• Jails and prisons
• Parolee and
probation offices
• Police stations
Most government and
criminal justice entities
were located in areas of
higher crime (represented
by pink and dark gray
tracts)

7. Includes:
• Substance abuse programs
• Mental health services
• Homeless shelters
On average most mental
health and substance
abuse programs were
located in areas of higher
crime (represented by
pink and dark gray tracts)

8. Results
 If you take a look at the maps shown in the previous slides,
the green dots tend to follow higher crime tracts (pink and
dark gray on the map)
 Social services and government entities tended to be located
in areas of higher crime rates.
 This research did not provided further support for collective
efficacy theory in showing that a greater presence of social
institutions and government entities was linked to
tracts/neighborhoods with higher crime rates
 These institutions are intended to act as a mechanism of
cohesion, bridging community values and decreasing crime
rates as asserted by collective efficacy theory, however, this
research found that to not be the case

9. Potential Explanation
 Social disorganization theory asserts that socio-
economically deprived areas have high rates of residential
mobility and racial heterogeneity, and in such areas,
conventional institutions of social control (i.e. social
services and government entities) are weak and unable to
regulate the behavior of neighborhood members, leading to
higher crime rates
 Possible that in regions with a heavier presence of social
programs and higher crime rates in Los Angeles, there is so
much residential mobility and racial diversity that the
social services in those areas have been weakened,
rendering them unable to control crime rates

10. Limitations
 Crime data collected by Professor Hipp was from 2014 and the
data I collected on current social services in Los Angeles County
 Don’t know whether there was already high crime in these areas
and so these services have tired to move in to work on reducing
that high crime, or…
 Whether these institutions were established first and high crime
followed after an influx of people, moving in and out to gain
better access to these social institutions, broke down these social
institutions creating social disorganization
 Didn’t control for programs targeting juveniles and creating a
sense of community or socio-economic status
 Possible that data collected on social service locations wasn’t
representative of all the service locations in Los Angeles County

11. Why is this important?
 In order to reduce crime rates, it is important to understand what
can affect those rates
 Analyses suggested that social services and government entities
have a direct relationship with the distribution of crime across Los
Angeles County tracts/neighborhoods.
 The findings of this project support a need for government funding
towards research on why there is a tendency for social institutions
and government entities to be located in areas of higher crime
 Was high crime already in these areas and so these services have
tired to move in to work on reducing that high crime?
 Or were these institutions established first and high crime followed
after an influx of people, moving in and out to gain better access to
these social institutions, broke down these social institutions
creating social disorganization?

12. Why is this important?
 A breakdown of these institution’s social control due to racial
diversity and residential mobility could be one possible explanation
for why these social services and government entities in Los
Angeles County tended to be located in areas of higher crime
 It would be beneficial to look at whether the high crime rates
throughout Los Angeles County and locations of social services and
government entities correlate to socio-economically deprived areas.

13. Literature Cited
 Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush S. W., and Earls F. (1997).
Neighborhoods And Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study Of
Collective Efficacy. Science, Vol. 277 Issue 5328, pp. 918-924.
 Sampson, R. J. and Groves B. W. (1989). Community Structure
and Crime: Testing Social-Disorganization Theory. American
Journal of Sociology Vol. 94, No. 4, pp. 774-802.