Bm. Veysey et Sf. Messner, Further testing of social disorganization theory: An elaboration of Sampson and Groves's "community structure and crime", J RES CRIME, 36(2), 1999, pp. 156-174
In one of the more important studies in the criminological literature over
the past decade, Sampson and Groves analyze data from 238 British neighborh
oods to rest the mediating effect of indicators of social disorganization v
ariables on the relationship between structural community characteristics a
nd crime. In this article, the authors recognize that advances in statistic
al theory and software allow for a more detailed analysis of Sampson and Gr
oves's integrated theory of community-level social disorganization. Using c
ovariance structure modeling (LISREL), the results of their analysis reveal
that (I) Sampson and Groves's argument regarding the mediating effect of s
ocial disorganization variables is only partially supported, (2) social-dis
organization is not one construct but rather represents several mechanisms
by which communities maintain stability, and (3) the resulting model may be
interpreted as supportive of several theories of crime, including peer aff
iliation theories, as well as social disorganization.