TY - JOUR
T1 - Neighborhoods of last resort
T2 - How landlord strategies concentrate violent crime
AU - Gomory, Henry
AU - Desmond, Matthew
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The Eviction Lab is funded by the JPB, the Bill and Melinda Gates, and Ford foundations as well as the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under award number [P2CHD047879]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official views of the NIH. The authors would also like to thank members of the Eviction Lab who offered insightful comments on earlier drafts, as well as Daniel O'Brien, Mark Ratkovic, and Patrick Sharkey.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 American Society of Criminology.
PY - 2023/5
Y1 - 2023/5
N2 - Studies of crime hot spots have argued that landlords’ management styles, specifically their tenant screening and property monitoring techniques, affect crime. These studies, however, have rarely considered the political–economic contexts in which these actions take place: specifically, how landlords’ behaviors are shaped by, and themselves reproduce, larger rental market structures. Drawing on data pertaining to eviction rates, criminal incidents, housing code violations, and landlord behavior in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this study documents how extractive rental management strategies, such as weak tenant screening, frequent eviction filings, and property disinvestment, concentrate crime at particular properties. In turn, high rates of crime in a neighborhood incentivize these extractive landlord strategies. By showing how landlords’ economic strategies are central to urban crime geographies, this study contributes to our understanding of third-party policing by revealing the limits of market-based solutions to place management dilemmas.
AB - Studies of crime hot spots have argued that landlords’ management styles, specifically their tenant screening and property monitoring techniques, affect crime. These studies, however, have rarely considered the political–economic contexts in which these actions take place: specifically, how landlords’ behaviors are shaped by, and themselves reproduce, larger rental market structures. Drawing on data pertaining to eviction rates, criminal incidents, housing code violations, and landlord behavior in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this study documents how extractive rental management strategies, such as weak tenant screening, frequent eviction filings, and property disinvestment, concentrate crime at particular properties. In turn, high rates of crime in a neighborhood incentivize these extractive landlord strategies. By showing how landlords’ economic strategies are central to urban crime geographies, this study contributes to our understanding of third-party policing by revealing the limits of market-based solutions to place management dilemmas.
KW - eviction
KW - housing
KW - landlord
KW - violence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85152402747&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85152402747&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/1745-9125.12332
DO - 10.1111/1745-9125.12332
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85152402747
SN - 0011-1384
VL - 61
SP - 270
EP - 294
JO - Criminology
JF - Criminology
IS - 2
ER -