A Tale of Two Theories: Whither Social Disorganization Theory and the Routine Activities Approach?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Social disorganization theory and the routine activities approach have been extensively applied separately as theoretical frameworks for the spatial analysis of crime, with general support. As hypothetical explanations for complex social phenomena, criminological theories can impact how studies are framed and how the crime problem is approached. Thus, it is important to evaluate theories continuously in various geographical, as well as contemporary contexts. This study uses both theories in tandem to examine their ability to explain 2016 property crime in Vancouver, Canada, using 2016 census data. Both theories found moderate support. Of particular note is that all of the variables designated as proxies for ethnic heterogeneity in social disorganization theory were either not statistically significant or negative, consistent with the immigration and crime literature. Additionally, almost all variables, when statistically significant, were found to have consistent results across crime types. These results bode well for the continued use of social disorganization theory and the routine activity approach in spatial analyses of crime.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.014 | 0.018 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.072 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.011 | 0.030 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.012 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".