Success with altruism

Introduce the sources you found after reading Sampson's 9th chapter.

The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports is an article based on a study trying to determine if higher education levels will save the society money in regards to criminal costs. Testing the Relationship Between Interpersonal Political Skills, Altruism, Leadership Success and Effectiveness: A Multilevel Model is a study relating certain aspects of life and altruism.

Explain how they relate to issues of particular importance to one or both of your emphases

The article The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports relates to my criminal justice emphasis because it is trying to determine what, if any, methods can assist in preventing criminal activity or lower costs of crime prevention. The article Testing the Relationship Between Interpersonal Political Skills, Altruism, Leadership Success and Effectiveness: A Multilevel Model demonstrates how altruism plays an important role in a successful business as well as other area in life.

and then how you feel they relate to Sampson's methods for testing altruism, cynicism, and other-regarding behavior in Chicago.

I feel these articles relate to Sampson’s methods because I feel Sampson did not emphasize education attainment as much as he should. He simply uses two studies (the letter and CPR) to base every result on. He also did not go into great detail (that I read) on how he obtains his numbers. He mentioned some questions that were used and he discusses some letter dropping methods but it was a bit vague on how the exact data was gathered. I kept asking myself, were the people being watched when the performed CPR or returning the letter? Did Sampson gather 911 records and interview the people on site? I was a little confused how he got his information exactly. The two articles I chose to compare both used survey based questionnaires and compiled their data accordingly. I assume Sampson did the same thing but it is hard to gage the authenticity of altruism through questionnaires. However, it does seem to support everything else read in the book thus far that collective efficacy, trust, and altruism combine for the “good community” environment. Again, all of these terms are relative to one’s interpretation as Sampson hinted early on in this chapter by saying, loosely translated, “good community” meaning a neighborhood the common populace would describe as such.

Be sure to include complete citation information for your sources.

Lochner, Lance, and Enrico Moretti. 2004. "The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports" American Economic Review, 94(1): 155-189.

 Moss, J. A., & Barbuto Jr., J. E. (2010). Testing the Relationship Between Interpersonal Political Skills, Altruism, Leadership Success and Effectiveness: A Multilevel Model. Journal Of Behavioral & Applied Management, 11(2), 155-174.

Neighborhoods unite

What is Collective Efficacy Theory (CET) as Sampson and colleagues define it?

Collective efficacy theory is, as Sampson and his colleagues define, “social cohesion” and “shared expectations for control”. What I think this means is the unity of a group with similar interests and “expectations” of how things should operate.

What is the evidence that you found in the international (or non-Chicago at least) study that you read?

The study I used is one that was conducted in Denmark and reduced down to women in the health care professional field. The study simply supports their hypothesis that a work environment with high collective efficacy will have lower numbers of intentions to leave among the employees in the female health care profession, Jensen J.N., Holten A. J .N. , -L. , Karpatschof B. & Albertsen K. (2011). Sampson mentions that collective efficacy impact other things like obesity, teen pregnancy, etc. so it is not surprising to find other support for collective efficacy positively influencing other relationships. In the article I found collective efficacy is referred to as a mutual “perspective” of their competencies as taken from (Bandura, 1997). So again, perception is a big part of having collective efficacy by both definitions. Below I will use the words “appearance” and “visual” in explanations of reactions. Visual cues and appearances leading to assumptions impact personal actions on a minute to minute basis. Collective efficacy is determined by these assumptions or perspectives. Sampson also mentioned the word “action” in this chapter which I am hoping he returns to elaborate on with an action plan of his own from his research.

And how would you answer the questions that Sampson gave his respondents, asking about what they thought their neighbors would do in various situations, only with respect to your own neighborhood?

1)      Children skipping school: I feel that the neighborhood I live in would do nothing about children skipping school. If it persisted I could see individuals in my neighborhood saying something to the children asking them why they weren’t in school but most likely nothing past that. If there were children hanging on the corner I would imagine that my neighborhood would inform the police depending on the “visual type” of crowd. Personally I work with youth but I also know how many children are home-schooled in today’s society so I would probably do nothing but inquire as well.

2)      Graffiti: Depending on the “appearance” of the individual(s) doing the spray painting I think my neighborhood and me included would either chase after them yelling at them to stop and start behaving or call the police on them and follow up by getting cleaner/paint supplies to restore the building to its original appearance.

3)      Disrespect: More often than not in today’s society you can witness children disrespecting adults in public. People in my neighborhood would most likely look toward the ground and shake their heads in disgust. I personally would approach the adult and ask them why they allow the child to treat them in such a disrespectful way. Depending on the adult’s response I would follow by either ignoring their stupid response or attempt to educate them on appropriate ways to alter the situation and not allow such disrespect to take place.

4)      Fight: I would assume that no matter what type of individuals were involved the people in my neighborhood would just notify the police in a situation where a fight broke out in front of their home. The individuals in my neighborhood are mostly elderly and confrontations and/or ability to handle a physical situation is extremely limited. Personally it would depend on the “appearance” of the individuals engaged in the dispute for me to determine if I were to engage in and attempted resolution procedure or just call the police.

5)      Fire/budget cuts: I would like to think that my neighborhood would commune and gather resources to assist in funding/operating the fire station if budget cuts were the cause of closure. I would volunteer some personal time in assisting with operation if budget cuts impacted the operation of the fire station.

JENSEN J.N., HOLTEN A. J .N. , -L. , KARPATSCHOF B. & ALBERTSEN K. (2011) Does

collective efficacy moderate the associations between physical work load and

intention to leave or sickness absence? Journal of Advanced Nursing 67(11), 2425–

2434. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2011.05674.x

Perception

It is very clear that Sampson disagrees with the "broken window" theory on a level but agrees with it to an extent. Since Sampson referred to the "broken window" theory many times in this chapter I felt it necessary to read the article in full. I used the broken window article to provide the challenging piece to Sampson's thesis. Below is the link to the "Broken Window Theory" article.
Sampson states that perception is a big factor in determining the link between neighborhood crime rates, immigration, poverty, etc. When I read the broken window theory I got the same thing. Broken window theory states that the presence of policemen on foot patrol did not lower crime rates at all, but instead it adjusted the "perception" of the people in the area of the foot patrol. Their presence made them "feel" safer even though the crime rates did not change at all. To translate that theory into the looks of environment in a particular area it would assume that damaged buildings, graffiti, etc would generate an "unsafe" perception among citizens but have no real effect on statistical changes in crime rates, poverty, racial divide, etc. So I feel Sampson is wanting to agree just to disagree.
Sampson also raises the question of what causes crime. Is crime caused by drug paraphernalia on the streets, broken windows, racial mixtures, etc? To that question I would answer how a professor of mine did once, laws cause crime. If we made everything legal there would be no crime. To compare, if we had no poverty level or lowered the poverty line then we would have no poverty. If we tie the broken window theory to the idea of what causes crime it means that "nice" or "clean" areas change the perception of crime being present but does not actually change the rates.
Lastly, if we compare the broken window theory to collective efficacy I think they go hand in hand. Sampson breifly touched on the beginning of an idea that he may revisit later, but that to change the pattern or alter the predictive future of a neighborhood it must be a collective process. Meaning that the broken window theory would be a perfect start to get a community to work together and prevent disorder. The percieved safety of a neighborhood through fixing "rundown" areas, thus increasing their perceptions of lower crime. Those perceptions, according to what I understand of Sampson's writing, would predict lower homicide rates in the future.
 http://www.lantm.lth.se/fileadmin/fastighetsvetenskap/utbildning/Fastighetsvaerderingssystem/BrokenWindowTheory.pdf

Consistent change

After first read of Chapter 5 my first thoughts were what two cities are those outliers on page 109? There are two cities, maybe a third, that had dramatic change from 1990 to 2000 regarding their public assistance/welfare. Maybe those should be the cities examined or studied instead of a non-unique city like Chicago. I also thought that his statement about the rich got richer and the poor stayed poor (not an exact quote) was interesting. I like both approaches because I feel that study/research is important to truly understand the full situation. My understanding is that Sampson also visited the city but maybe he didn't attempt to activate any type of plan. Therefore, I feel that overall J.R.'s approach would be more effective. I feel J.R.'s approach is more effective because he seems to actually want change. The only way to make change is action. I feel that Sampson (maybe I will find out differently late in his book) only conducted research and compiled results. I haven't noticed any type of action plan from Sampson yet. I feel a more effective approach, which Sampson may have done, would be to conduct research, formulate a plan, and act upon the plan. For example, in Chicago relative to the foreclosure increase J.R. came up with the anti-eviction plan. I feel that does not satisfy the overall problem but it is a plan.

I recall the neighborhood I moved here from 5 years ago. Central Oregon was a "booming" town, along with the rest of the country, where construction was on the rise and home loans were being handed out like candy. As soon as the economy took a downward turn a lot of the construction companies left the area which forced closures of many lumber yards, parts stored, supply stores and other construction related businesses. I revisited the town after about 3 years away and it had turned into a "slum" looking town with many people taking on drug use, theft or other illegal means of income. Surprisingly enough, downtown was desolate but the "outskirts" were still nice looking neighborhoods with people waking up early for their morning jogs then going to work. I think the major problem of the area was the ease of income during the "boom" then lack of income opportunities once they left. I think it gave a false sense of "easy money" and lowered the standard of work ethics in the area. A research approach I would use would be to study education levels attained, average financial debt, workplace commutes, and local job opportunities. I would correlate all findings with criminal activity as well.

That ties back to another item I wanted to address regarding the reading from Sampson. The chart on page 110 reflects crime rate in the 90's compared to crime rate in the 2000's. Sampson states that crime dramatically "declined nearly 50 percent" so I am either reading the chart wrong or he is mistaken. I see many of the bubbles indicating crime logs in close to the same location for both sets of years. I have also taken some criminal justice courses which have discussed the ease of which people can manipulate results to favor their hypothesis so that is a question I would ask of Sampson.

Second Blog

In the reading, Sampson refers to place as a specific location. Sampson seems to suggest that place, or location, has a direct impact on neighborhoods. Chicago is widely recognized as one of the crime capitals in our country, that statement in itself has a dramatic impact on how the neighborhoods within Chicago act. Sampson's "virtual tour" through the city describes what most people would commonly picture when walking through any major city in our country, be it LA, Portland, New York, Miami, Dallas, or any others. One question I starting to ponder while reading the chapter was whether or not Sampson is going to explain in further detail the geographical locations of the specific neighborhoods within Chicago. I started thinking about whether or not "death corner" has a higher number of railroad tracks running through it compared to the rest of the town. I questioned whether "death corner" has more bridges (which Sampson claims to be an "approved location" for homeless) than the rest of the city. Such questions could be asked in reference to other major cities within the country where poverty, homeless, or higher crime is a factor.
The neighborhood I live in is very much the opposite of total strangers. I do not know (personally) any of the people in my neighborhood, but many of them know each other. I live in a neighborhood of many 55+ communities and many of the people in my physical location are retired. I feel extremely safe and comfortable in my neighborhood even though everyone is still a stranger to me. My communities are really just my family, along with some close friends. I have always been a person to trust those that have earned my trust so my community is always small in comparison to someone who openly trusts anyone. On a broader scale I am a veteran so I belong to certain groups related to that and I am also a passionate swimmer so I belong to some swim groups. Due to the nature of such groups they are not local (place oriented) groups. Meaning my comrades generally are not even in the same state as me. The use of technology helps the functionality of these groups tremendously. These groups are perfect for my personality because trust is gained through strict "testing" when joining (at least at the time when I joined them) so I know I can trust my communities with my life.