Crime in a city: Urban disorder and its consequences in New York, 1890-1990.
Item
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Title
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Crime in a city: Urban disorder and its consequences in New York, 1890-1990.
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Identifier
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AAI9605631
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identifier
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9605631
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Creator
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McCrie, Robert Delbert.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Richard C. Wade
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Date
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1995
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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History, United States | American Studies | Sociology, Criminology and Penology
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Abstract
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Is the city safe? Or is the city in a declensional phase abetted by decades of documented and highly publicized violent and property crime?;New York City serves as a case history of urban consequences to disorder, specifically violent crime, primarily examined here over eleven census periods, 1890 to 1990. Separate chapters discuss history from colonial times through 1900 and biological, psychological, social, economic, and other theories on crime causation.;Violent crime is described as a powerful social force that can depopulate and economically weaken an otherwise vibrant community. The city and its criminal history is evaluated in the Gay Nineties, World War I, the era of Prohibition, The Bronx, the suburbs, and the city through 1990. The work's thesis is that crime exists naturally in society and is moderated by social controls which, when mitigated, lead to greater criminality. The urban crime upsurge, roughly beginning 1960 and extending through 1990, is related to the diminuendo of controls concerning the family, police funding and practices, the changing nature of work, schooling, proliferation of drugs, and handgun availability.;The work supports findings that violent and property crime increased in the last three decades of the study, though probably not as much as the general perception held. Some crime "increase" is because of changes in reporting methods by police and the increased frequency with which victims reported crimes. The study argues that the city is safe as measured by community death rates which reached their centennial nadir in 1990. despite a record high murder-homicide rate that year. Murder-homicide strikes the community disparately and is related to identifiable circumstances including: age, sex, socioeconomic standing, time, and location. While safe for most, the city became unsafe for young, black, inner-city males without adequate employment. Inner-city perpetrators were responsible inordinately for the increase in murder-homicide and other crimes in the closing years of this study: their victims similarly were from the inner-city.;A concluding observation is that urban crime, currently a major societal topic, will continue to fluctuate but will likely experience substantial reduction in the future as society presses its will to control this type of disorder.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
