Abstract
Community violence that occurs outside of the home is often a major concern in large cities. Traditional community violence prevention strategies, best-practice literature, and funding requests for proposals are often built upon place-specific approaches to “community”, addressing physical and social conditions rooted in social disorganization theory. In modern societies, however, geographically-bound notions of community as delineated physical neighborhoods increasingly do not match with the activity spaces where people live, work, and recreate, especially in rapidly-gentrifying cities. Empirical work on violence prevention in the U.S. is presented that reconceptualizes “community” to include groups of people and institutions linking across individuals and experiences. This reconceptualization may more accurately depict the violence prevention ecosystem aligning with the modern realities of community violence. Implications for research and evaluation of this reconceptualized community violence prevention approach are discussed.
Presenters
Erika GeboProfessor, Sociology & Criminal Justice, Suffolk University-Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Violence Prevention, Community, Neighborhood
