Dissecting Disorder Perceptions: Neighborhood Structure and the Moderating Role of Interethnic Contact and Xenophobic Attitudes

• Author: Heleen J. Janssen,Dietrich Oberwittler,Dominik Gerstner
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1057567719896020
• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Date: 01 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Original Articles

Original Article

Dissecting Disorder

Perceptions: Neighborhood

Structure and the Moderating

Role of Interethnic Contact

and Xenophobic Attitudes

Heleen J. Janssen

1

, Dietrich Oberwittler

2

,

and Dominik Gerstner

2

Abstract

Although urban disorder has played a central role in neighborhood research, its impact may have

been overstated in studies relying on the subjective perception of survey respondents only.

Research on the “perception bias”—defined as the divergence between respondents’ subjective

assessments and systematic observations of disorder—has revealed the ambiguous nature of dis-

order and opened a door to the analysis of the social construction of this environmental cognition.

Using survey and observational data from 140 small neighborhoods in two German cities, we

advance this research by focusing on the moderating role of residents’ interethnic contacts and

attitudes. The results show that the effects of neighborhood minority concentration on the per-

ception bias are conditional on the residents’ interethnic contacts and xenophobic attitudes. These

findings highlight the subjectivity of disorder perceptions and caution against a naive understanding

of Broken Windows theory.

Keywords

neighborhoods, disorder, incivilities, Broken Windows theory, perception bias, interethnic attitudes

In research on communities and crime, disorder has been a pivotal concept for many years.

“Broken Windows” theory (Kelling & Wilson, 1982) and Skogan’s (1990) concept of “disorder

and decline” have succeeded in popularizing in criminology and crime policy the claim that physical

1

Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, the

Netherlands

2

Independent Research Group “Space, Contexts, and Crime”, Department of Criminology, Max Planck Institute for Foreign

and International Criminal Law, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

Corresponding Author:

Heleen J. Janssen, Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Tech-

nology, Julianalaan 134, 2628 BL Delft, the Netherlands.

Email: h.j.janssen@tudelft.nl

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DOI: 10.1177/1057567719896020

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decay and low-level breaches of social order as littering and vandalism pave the way for more

serious crimes. Even though its distinctiveness and causal role remains contested, measurements of

disorder have been included in many if not most major studies on crime in urban neighborhoods

since the 1980s (Skogan, 2015). Beyond criminology, disorder in close conjunction with fear is

suspected to have detrimental effects on residents’ satisfaction, well-being, and health behavior in

research by environmental psychologists and urban sociologists (e.g., Bjornstrom & Ralston, 2014;

Cutrona et al., 2000; Foster et al., 2014; Hill et al., 2005; Latkin & Curry, 2003; Rollwagen, 2016;

Ross & Mirowsky, 2009; Ross et al., 2000; Wallace et al., 2018).

Yet, given its prominence, it is surprising that the status of empirical confirmation of Broken

Windows theory is, in fact, rather weak (Harcourt, 2004; Link et al., 2014; Steenbeek & Hipp, 2011).

The core hypothesis that disorder increases crime has found very little empirical support nor has a

consistent picture of the pathways and mechanisms by which this effect should be brought about

emerged (Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003; W. Skogan, 2015). Most recently, the repercu ssions of the

financial crisis on the U.S. housing market have been shown to effect an increase of crime in areas

with many foreclosures (Chamberlain & Hipp, 2015; Wallace et al., 2018), and there is evidence for

the criminogenic nature of abandoned properties strongly suggesting a causal link between some

facets of disorder and crime (Larson et al., 2019; Porter et al., 2019).Yet, based predominantly on

official data sources only, most foreclosure studies assume but cannot empirically show that disorder

is major mechanism of crime causation.

One main reason for this unsatisfactory state is measurement: Many studies have relied on the

perceptions of survey respondents only . Yet concerns grew relatively quick ly about a possible

overestimation of the impact of disorder on neighborhood social processes if both were based on

respondents’ reports and might share error variance. This quandary has lead scholars to turn to

systematic social observation (SSO) as an independent and more objective data source which

“would permit discriminating impacts of actual signs of disorder from impacts of residents’ reac-

tions to cues of disorder” (Covington & Taylor, 1991, p. 233). These studies usually found weaker

associations between disorder, fear, and other community-related social cognitions (Ha¨fele, 2013a;

Hinkle & Yang, 2014; Perkins & Taylor, 1996; Skogan, 2015).

It is the combination of both types of measurement that has advanced our knowledge about the

meaning of urban disorder most. While SSO data offer a more objective assessment of visible signs

of urban disorder and hence more realistic estimates of their effects on neighborhood social pro-

cesses, it lacks the “social meaning ascribed to disorder by community residents that may trigger the

broken windows process” (Kubrin, 2008, p. 207). If incivilities are to affect residents’

neighborhood-related judgments and behaviors, this can, of course, only happen through their

individual subjective perceptions (Hinkle & Weisburd, 2008, p. 507).

Viewed as “a meaningful aspect of the neighborhood environment” (Sampson, 2009, p. 24),

subjective perceptions and the factors that drive them have become a focus of research in their own

right. The “perception bias”—defined as the divergence between respondents’ subjective assess-

ments and systematic observations of disorder—is not merely an issue of statistical rigor but better

understood as part of cognitive and social processes, which collectively form neighborhood reputa-

tions (Skogan, 2015, p. 473). In their seminal study on Chicago neighborhoods, Sampson and

Raudenbush (Sampson, 2009; Sampson & Raudenbush, 2004) found that sociodemographic com-

position had a profound impact on disorder perceptions above and beyond objective levels of

disorder, with residents in neighborhoods with more poverty and higher shares of Black and His-

panic residents perceiving higher levels of disorder relative to objective levels. They interpreted this

finding as an effect of an implicit bias leading to a “racial stigmatization” of neighborhoods. A small

number of studies in other cities have confirmed the pivotal role of neighborhood ethnic composition

and have added to the understanding of the perception bias, yet little is known about the mechanisms

driving the “social construction” (Kubrin, 2008, p. 206) of disorder. We advance this line of research

430 International Criminal Justice Review 32(4)