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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 11:31 am
Time: 11:31 am
Results for crime and redevelopment
1 results foundAuthor: Cahill, Meagan Title: Movin’ Out: Crime Displacement and HUD’s HOPE VI Initiative Summary: The purpose of this project was to conduct an evaluation of the impact on crime of the closing, renovation, and subsequent reopening of selected public housing developments under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s HOPE VI initiative. No studies have specifically considered the effects of redevelopment of public housing under the HOPE VI initiative on the spatial distribution of crime. The current research aimed to remedy that deficiency through an examination of crime displacement and potential diffusion of benefits in and around three public housing developments. The developments were selected from a candidate set of six HOPE VI sites in Milwaukee, Wis., and Washington, D.C., all of which were in the process of being redeveloped with HOPE VI funds during the study period. Displacement refers to changes in crime patterns that occur because offenders adapt their behavior to changes in opportunities for offending. In the context of the proposed work, opportunity changes are the result of large-scale public housing redevelopment. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, when HOPE VI developments are demolished and construction begins on new housing, residents are typically moved to other public housing sites in the same city. Our assumption was that crime would move with those residents to the new public housing locations, or to other nearby areas offering similar criminal opportunities. Three central research questions thus guide this report: 1. Does the closing of a large high-poverty public housing development under HOPE VI influence patterns of crime in and around that development, and if so, how? 2. Does crime displacement or di usion of benefits result during the time that the development is closed for rebuilding, and does crime return to previous levels when the development reopens? 3. Do different methodologies for examining crime displacement and diffusion of benefits from public housing developments yield similar results, and which is most appropriate for studying displacement in this context? The work entailed a statistical analysis of potential displacement or diffusion of crime from three selected sites, after the redevelopment timeline of each site was established. Three methods were employed: a point pattern analysis, a Weighted Displacement Quotient (WDQ), and time series analysis. The methods were compared following their application in each site. The results indicate that displacement of crime did not appear to be a significant problem during or following redevelopment under the HOPE VI program in these three sites. Instead, a diffusion of benefits was observed to some extent in each site. We found a clear indication in all three sites that crime dropped at some point during redevelopment and that redevelopment affected crime in surrounding areas in some way — usually by decreasing it. The effects in the buffers (the areas searched for displacement or diffusion of benefits) varied, but for the most part, we observed a diffusion of benefits from the target sites outward. Additional investigation into subtypes of crime would help to bring more specificity to the results (e.g., whether any crime prevention methods implemented during redevelopment should target specific types of crimes that are more vulnerable to displacement). In addition, in no site did we find any return to pre-intervention crime levels following the intervention period in either the target site itself or in the buffer areas. This indicates that the positive effects — the drops in crime — lasted at least as long as the study period, which was generally one to two years beyond the end of the intervention period. The project also aimed to compare different methods for studying displacement. The point pattern analysis had limited use in the present context, but we concluded that it would have more utility if a specific crime such as homicide, robbery, or burglary, were studied as opposed to studying a class of crimes such as personal or property crimes. The method is also quite involved, but efficiencies are gained once analyses are set up for one context, making it easier to apply the method in additional contexts (e.g., for additional time period comparisons, different areas/site boundaries, or types of crime). While it cannot replace more rigorous statistical analyses and testing, the typical constraints felt by most practitioners on time and resources make the WDQ best suited for their context. The WDQ is intuitive, easy to calculate, and does not require a long series of data. It is appropriate for use in exploring the possible effects of an intervention to determine whether more sophisticated analyses are worthwhile. While there are drawbacks to the use of the WDQ — it is only descriptive, it can only indicate relative (not absolute) effect sizes, and it is dependent on the parameters selected (time periods and displacement areas selected) — it is nonetheless a useful intermediate tool in the study of displacement. Where skilled statisticians are available and a quantification of the changes in crime levels is desired, the time series analyses methods presented here produce more rigorous results. Our results also demonstrated the desirability of the structural Vector Autoregression (VAR) over the traditional time series method typically used in displacement research — single series Autoregressive Integrated MovingAverage (ARIMA) modeling. The VAR was preferable based on the simultaneous modeling of the three study areas, as opposed to modeling each area individually. Finally, to the extent that the three HOPE VI sites in two cities are representative of other actual and possible HOPE VI sites, the results are applicable to other public housing sites undergoing this type of large-scale redevelopment, especially given the comparability of results we found across sites and methods. The consistency with which we found evidence of diffusion from the sites is an indication that redevelopment under HOPE VI does indeed lead to diffusion of crime reduction, whether via changes directly attributable to HOPE VI in the target area or indirectly by encouraging additional investment in the larger neighborhood of the HOPE VI site, leading to additional redevelopment efforts in areas surrounding the HOPE VI site itself. Based on our findings, we expect that housing authorities that undertake such largescale public housing redevelopment efforts as are common under HOPE VI will likely see a diffusion of benefits to nearby areas, and those nearby areas may experience reductions in crime levels similar to that experienced in the redevelopment site itself. Localities considering large-scale redevelopment, either under the HOPE VI program or following a similar process, might look at specific crimes that may be displaced, such as personal crimes (as was the case in Milwaukee) and enact policies that serve to prevent displacement specifically of those crimes from occurring. Studying displacement from public housing is an important undertaking, and the possibility of displacement should be considered by housing authorities either already undertaking such e orts or considering whether to start large-scale redevelopment. While this research showed that diffusion of benefits is likely from redeveloped public housing, more work of this type — exploring different options for target area boundaries, intervention periods, and displacement areas — can provide more evidence of the best approaches to this type of effort and inform housing authorities of the most effcient ways to include studies of displacement and diffusion in their redevelopment efforts. Additional research in this vein that confirms the results here would add to the case presented by this research for the positive effects of HOPE VI on target sites and on surrounding neighborhoods. Details: Washington, DC: Urban Institute, Justice Policy Center, 2011. 95p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 10, 2011 at: http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/412385-movin-out.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/412385-movin-out.pdf Shelf Number: 122687 Keywords: Crime and RedevelopmentCrime DisplacementCrime PreventionDiffusion of BenefitsNeighborhoods and CrimePublic HousingUrban Areas |