Neighborhood Crime Control in a Changing China

• Author: Colin P. Gruner,Lening Zhang,Sheldon X. Zhang,Steven F. Messner
• DOI: 10.1177/0022427816682059
• Date: 01 July 2017
• Published date: 01 July 2017
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Neighborhood Crime

Control in a Changing

China: Tiao-Jie,

Bang-Jiao, and

Neighborhood Watches

Steven F. Messner

1

, Lening Zhang

2

,

Sheldon X. Zhang

3

, and Colin P. Gruner

4

Abstract

Objectives: This research assesses th e impacts of three distinctive crime

control activities organized and directed by the neighborhood committees

with the assistance of local police in contemporary urban China—Tiao-jie,

Bang-jiao, and neighborhood watches. Tiao-jie deals with disputes and minor

criminal cases. Bang-jiao provides guidance to residents who have commit-

ted minor offenses or have been released from correctional institutions to

facilitate reintegration. Neighborho od watches engage local residents in

crime prevention under the direction of neighborhood committees.

Method: Using survey data recently collected in Tianjin, we examine the

effects of indicators of the implementation of these neighborhood-based

crime control strategies on residents’ reports of household property

1

Department of Sociology, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY, USA

2

Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Saint Francis University, Loretto, PA, USA

3

Department of Sociology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA

4

Albany, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Steven F. Messner, Department of Sociology, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY 12222,

USA.

Email: smessner@albany.edu

Journal of Research in Crime and

Delinquency

2017, Vol. 54(4) 544-577

ªThe Author(s) 2016

Reprints and permission:

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DOI: 10.1177/0022427816682059

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victimizations that occurred within the neighborhoods with multilevel logis-

tic regressions. Results: Net of a range of individual-level and neighborhood-

level control variables, the indicators of the level of activity of Tiao-jie, Bang-

jiao, and neighborhood watches exhibit negative effects on reported house-

hold property victimization. Conclusions : Our findings provide suggestive

evidence that the traditional strategies of neighborhood-level crime control

continue to be relevant in the China of today and that the role of collective

efficacy appears to differ from that observed in Western cities.

Keywords

Tiao-jie, Bang-jiao, crime, urban China

One of the core problematics in sociological criminology over the course of

the past century or so has been trying to explain the ecological patterning of

levels of crime in urban settings. The basic question that motivates such

inquiry can be stated quite simply, ‘‘What makes some neighborhoods safer

from crime than others?’’ (Warner and Glubb 2013:333).

The intellectual foundations for these efforts can be traced to the pio-

neering work on social disorganization associated with the classical Chi-

cago School (Kornhauser 1978; Shaw and McKay 1942). The Chicago

School researchers documented appreciable differences in levels of crime

across neighborhoods in the city that proved to be remarkably durable over

time. Moreover, they recognized that in highly industrialized and urbanized

societies, the official organizations for law enforcement have at best a

limited capacity to control crime. Social disorganization theory accordingly

directs attention to the scope and quality of the relationships among the

private residents of different neighborhoods and to their capacity to mobi-

lize and work together to realize collective goals—including the goal of

securing a safe and secure public environment (Bursick and Grasmick

1993). Despite the theoretical and methodological criticisms that have been

leveled at the Chicago School over the years (see, e.g., Bursik 1988), its

distinctive insight has endured. A large and growing body of research on

‘‘neighborhood effects’’ indicates that the local community plays an impor-

tant role in determining how safe or unsafe an urban neighborhood is likely

to be (Messner and Zimmerman 2012; Sampson, Morenoff, and Gannon-

Rowley 2002).

Community dynamics also play an important role in crime control in

urban China, but the organizational context for such community processes

Messner et al. 545

differs profoundly from that in the West. In China, the state has created

formal, officially recognized organizations of urban residents—the neigh-

borhood committees (ju

¨-wei-hui), sometimes translated as ‘‘residents’ com-

mittees.’’ These neighborhood committees encompass territories with

explicitly defined boundaries, and they sponsor and direct a wide variety

of activities.

The most important of these activities for present purposes are the crime

control programs of Tiao-jie,Bang-jiao, and neighborhood watches

(described below). These activities are organized and directed by the neigh-

borhood committees with the assistance of local police agencies, and they

have been cited as major factors accounting for low crime rates in urban

China during the reign of Mao (Tang and Parish 2000; Whyte and Parish

1984; Zhang et al. 1996; Zhang, Messner, and Liu 2007). As Whyte and

Parish (1984) and Read (2012) observ ed, these neighborhood programs

were part of total social control under Mao, and their primary purpose was

not crime prevention, but rather political control. Effective crime control

became a by-product of the pervasive political control.

Following the economic reforms since the early 1980s, the ecology of

urban neighborhoods in China has changed dramatically. The severe restric-

tions on population mobility have been relaxed allowing large numbers of

rural migrants to settle in the cities (Liang, Li, and Ma 2014). An economic

elite has emerged along with a poverty stratum (Bian 2002), and private

ownership of housing has greatly expanded, along with the private sphere of

life more generally (Zhong 2009). Crime rates, and property crimes in

particular, have increased dramatically (Liu , Zhang, and Messner 2001;

Zhang, Messner, and Liu 2008). Most of these crimes have been attributed

by Chinese scholars to the influx of the large ‘‘floating’’ populations of

migrants and income inequalities (Shi and Wu 2010; D. Wang et al. 2007;

G. Wang and Liu 2006; Z. Wang 2006). Neighborhood committees have

increasingly been ‘‘in the process of adaptation’’ struggling to remain rel-

evant in the face of the general decline in communist ideology and state

control over individual behavior, growing anonymity among urban dwell-

ers, and commercial orientation in social interactions (Zhong 2009:219-

21).

1

Compared to the Mao era, when neighborhood committees often

represented the frontline of political campaigns and government control

of urban Chinese residents, their influence is much subdued and concerned

to a large extent with providing social services.

The purpose of the present study is to assess the impacts of the crime

control activities implemented by the neighborhood committees in contem-

porary urban China. Using survey data rec ently collected in the city of

546 Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 54(4)