HOW COLLECTIVE IS COLLECTIVE EFFICACY? THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSENSUS IN JUDGMENTS ABOUT COMMUNITY COHESION AND WILLINGNESS TO INTERVENE

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12180
• Author: IAN BRUNTON‐SMITH,GEORGE LECKIE,PATRICK STURGIS
• Date: 01 August 2018
• Published date: 01 August 2018

HOW COLLECTIVE IS COLLECTIVE EFFICACY? THE

IMPORTANCE OF CONSENSUS IN JUDGMENTS

ABOUT COMMUNITY COHESION AND WILLINGNESS

TO INTERVENE∗

IAN BRUNTON-SMITH,1PATRICK STURGIS,2

and GEORGE LECKIE3

1Department of Sociology, University of Surrey—Guildford

2Department of Social Statistics, University of Southampton—Southampton

3Centre for Multilevel Modeling, University of Bristol—Bristol

KEYWORDS: collective efficacy, mixed-effects, location-scale model, neighborhood

effects, multilevel model, consensus effects

Existing studies have generally measured collective efficacy by combining survey re-

spondents’ ratings of their local area into an overall summary for each neighborhood.

Naturally, this approach results in a substantive focus on the variation in average levels

of collective efficacy between neighborhoods. In this article, we focus on the variation

in consensus of collective efficacy judgments. To account for differential consensus

among neighborhoods, we use a mixed-effects location-scale model, with variability

in the consensus of judgments treated as an additional neighborhood-level random ef-

fect. Our results show that neighborhoods in London differ, not just in their average

levels of collective efficacy but also in the extent to which residents agree with one an-

other in their assessments. In accord with findings for U.S. cities, our results show that

consensus in collective efficacy assessments is affected by the ethnic composition of

neighborhoods. Additionally, we show that heterogeneity in collective efficacy assess-

ments is consequential, with higher levels of criminal victimization, worry about crime,

and risk avoidance behavior in areas where collective efficacy consensus is low.

Compelling evidence now exists that collective efficacy plays an important role in shap-

ing the patterning of crime, disorder, and perceptions of victimization risk across lo-

cal areas. Collective efficacy is conceived of as a confluence of networks, values, and

norms of reciprocity that combine to enable individuals and communities to intervene

as a way of suppressing norm-deviant behavior and of maintaining social order. Or, as

∗The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and David McDowall for invalu-

able feedback during the review process. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the

Economic and Social Research Council through the grant for the National Centre for Research

Methods [NCRM; grant reference: ES/L008351/1]

Direct correspondence to Ian Brunton-Smith, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Stag

Hill, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, U.K. (e-mail: i.r.brunton-smith@surrey.ac.uk).

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which per-

mits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

C2018 The Authors. Criminology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Society of

Criminology. doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12180

CRIMINOLOGY Volume 56 Number 3 608–637 2018 608

HOW COLLECTIVE IS COLLECTIVE EFFICACY? 609

Sampson put it, collective efficacy is “the process of activating or converting social ties

among neighborhood residents in order to achieve collective goals, such as public or-

der or control of crime” (2010: 802). Research findings across a range of contexts have

shown that areas characterized by higher collective efficacy have lower levels of crime

(e.g., Armstrong, Katz, and Schnelby, 2015; Mazerolle, Wickes, and McBroom, 2010;

Oberwittler, 2007; Odgers et al., 2009; Sampson, 2012; Sampson and Wikstr ¨

om, 2007;

Zhang, Messner, and Liu, 2007) and lower levels of fear of victimization and perceived

disorder (e.g., Brunton-Smith, Sutherland, and Jackson, 2014; Farrall, Jackson, and Gray,

2009; Sampson, 2009). It has been posited as the social-psychological mechanism through

which structural characteristics of local areas influence crime-related outcomes, me-

diating associations between neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and recorded

and perceived crime rates (Morenoff, Sampson, and Raudenbush, 2001; Sampson, 2012;

Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls, 1997). Collective efficacy also seems to be important

for understanding a range of other neighborhood-contingent social phenomena, including

risky sexual behavior among teenagers (Browning et al., 2008), adolescent mental health

(Browning et al., 2013), and confidence in the police (Nix et al., 2015).

Collective efficacy (henceforth CE) is considered to be an attribute of neighborhoods

rather than of individuals: a combination of the networks, norms, and trust between resi-

dents and the capacity this endows them with to control and suppress anti-social and crim-

inal behavior (Mazerolle, Wickes, and McBroom, 2010; Sampson, 2012; Zhang, Messner,

and Liu, 2007). The collective and inherently subjective nature of the CE concept poses

challenges for valid and robust measurement (Hipp, 2016). In existing empirical stud-

ies, scholars have predominantly approached these measurement challenges by eschew-

ing “objective” indicators and, instead, have combined the subjective ratings of survey

respondents into summary indicators (Raudenbush and Sampson, 1999). This has been

done either by simple averaging (e.g., Bruinsma et al., 2013; Wells et al., 2006; Zhang,

Messner, and Liu, 2007) or by using statistical modeling approaches that adjust for com-

positional differences between individuals and areas (e.g., Browning et al., 2008; Brunton-

Smith, Sutherland, and Jackson, 2014; Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls, 1997; Wikstr ¨

om

et al., 2012). In these studies, researchers have focused on variation between neighbor-

hoods in the average of CE assessments. They have asked whether higher or lower av-

erage levels of CE across neighborhoods is (conditionally) related to outcomes such as

recorded crime, willingness to intervene, and perceptions of victimization risk. Consider-

ably less attention has been paid to differences between neighborhoods in the variability

of these assessments around their averages. Yet there are good reasons to believe that the

level of consensus in residents’ assessments of CE will also differ across neighborhoods

(Browning, Dirlam, and Boettner, 2016) and, moreover, that such differences will be con-

sequential for individual and community responses to crime and norm-violating behavior

(Downs and Rocke, 1979).

In this article, we consider CE from this perspective; we assess whether and how

variability in CE assessments is related to crime-relevant outcomes within neighbor-

hoods. Using data from a large random survey of London residents, we extend the

standard two-level, mixed-effects model (multilevel model or hierarchical linear model)

commonly employed in neighborhood effects research to a mixed-effects, location-

scale model (Hedeker, Mermelstein, and Demirtas, 2008). This allows us to model

the within-neighborhood heterogeneity in CE ratings as a function of characteristics

of not just neighborhoods but also the individual raters themselves. In addition to