Neighborhoods and Intimate Partner Violence
November 2010
ISBN-13: 978-1-59332-437-7 / Hardcover
Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 / x, 166 pages
Wright uses data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods to examine the effects of neighborhood structural characteristics and intervening social mechanisms of collective efficacy, social ties, culture, and disorder on intimate partner violence victimization among females. She finds that partner violence is not solely an individual-level phenomenon and that the mechanisms identified by social disorganization theory appear to explain neighborhood influences on intimate partner violence. In particular, neighborhood concentrated immigration, collective efficacy, social ties and satisfaction with police reduce violence between partners while concentrated disadvantage, legal cynicism, and physical disorder increase such violence. She demonstrates that social disorganization theory can be applied to non-street forms of violence, such as intimate partner violence.