Modeling the Structural Effects of Residential Instability, Family Disruptions, and Social Support on Neighborhood Crime Perceptions: A Partial Test of Social Disorganization Theory

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the tenets of Social Disorganization Theory, we model the effects of neighborhood structural correlates on neighborhood crime perceptions in two urbanized Ghanaian communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Using 500 responses from a cross-sectional survey of 100 households, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM) is used to test a hypothesized model that incorporates measures of Residential Instability, Family Disruption, Social Support, and Neighborhood Crime Perceptions. Findings indicated that like other studies elsewhere, Residential Instability and Family Disruptions both have significant negative effects on community-level Social Support. However, Social Support had a positive effect on neighborhood crime perceptions. The findings in the study while providing some support for the SDT also raises questions about the influence of social support as an informal social control measure across varied spatial contexts.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study received no funding from any institution or organization.

Notes on contributors

Jones Opoku-Ware

Jones Opoku-Ware  holds a PhD in Sociology , specializing in Crime and Criminological Studies from the Department of Sociology and Social Work at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)-Ghana. He is currently the Program Coordinator for the MSc Development Management Program at the Institute of Distance Learning, KNUST. His current research interests are in Deviance and Criminology especially Spatial Crime Distribution, Crime pattern Analysis, Ecological Crime Studies, Social Disorganization and Social Development.

Kofi Osei Akuoko

Kofi Osei Akuoko is a Professor at the Department of Sociology and Social Work, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). He was until recently the Director for the Centre for Cultural and African studies of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. His research interests span across organizational behavior, human resource management, deviance, and criminology.

Kwadwo Ofori-Dua

Kwadwo Ofori-Dua is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Work, Faculty of Social Sciences, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Kumasi. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work, Master of Philosophy in Sociology, and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with Political Science from the University of Ghana, Legon. His research interests cover areas such as Sociology of Work and Industrial Organizations, Qualitative Research Methods, Social Gerontology, Crime and Deviance especially on violence and gangs, as well as Qualitative Social Work.

Jonathan Mensah Dapaah

Jonathan Mensah Dapaah is an Associate Professor and currently the Head of Department for Sociology and Social Work, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. He holds a PhD from the  Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam. His research interests are in hospital ethnography, culture, and health, medical sociology, quantitative and qualitative methodologies.