New Parochialism and Community Dynamics

• Author: Andrea Leverentz
• Published date: 01 May 2014
• Date: 01 May 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12079

POLICY ESSAY

COMMUNITY INVESTMENT AND THE

CONTROL OF STREET CRIME

New Parochialism and Community

Dynamics

Benefits and Possible Collateral Consequences

Andrea Leverentz

University of Massachusetts—Boston

The influence of community dynamics on offending has long been a focus of crim-

inological research. Likewise, changing these community dynamics is a popular

focus of crime-fighting programs and policies. Community policing, neighbor-

hood watches, anti–“stop snitching” campaigns, and similar programs attempt to foster

resident involvement in crime fighting. These programs must contend with busy, disinter-

ested, or fearful residents as well as the broader stereotypes and stigma attached to both

high-crime neighborhoods and those who police them. Patrick Carr’s(2005) new parochial-

ism is a relatively recent theoretical development to understand how informal social control

may play out in contemporary communities facing some of these challenges. Ramey and

Shrider (2014, this issue) test the impact of the policy implications of new parochialism in

their exploration of Seattle’s Neighborhood Matching Fund (NMF) program.

New parochialism is an extension of Albert Hunter’s typology of informal social con-

trol (Hunter, 1985). Hunter first argued that individuals self-regulate behavior in their

neighborhoods when private (family and friends), parochial (neighbors and neighborhood

institutions), and public (city services based outside the neighborhood) levels of control

work together. Carr found in his ethnographic study of Beltway in Chicago that residents

engaged in successful informal social control even when the private, parochial, and public

levels did not work together. Although private and parochial networks were diminished in

Beltway, residents capitalized on control efforts that bridged parochial and public levels.

In other words, even though residents did not intervene directly on the behavior of their

I thank Andrew Papachristos for comments on an earlier draft of this essay. Direct correspondence to Andrea

Leverentz, University of Massachusetts Boston, Wheatley Hall, 100 Morrissey Blvd, Boston, MA 02125 (e-mail:

andrea.leverentz@umb.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12079 C2014 American Society of Criminology 217

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 13 rIssue 2