From Private Nuisance to Criminal Behaviour: Neighbour Problems and Neighbourhood Context in an Australian City

Abstract

The problems that arise between neighbours have not received the academic scrutiny they deserve despite neighbour problems and disputes appearing to be a growing phenomenon. In this paper, we begin to address this omission by examining the kinds of problems residents in the city of Brisbane, Australia, are likely to encounter with neighbours and identifying patterns in their distribution on the basis of neighbourhood characteristics. Making a distinction between private nuisance problems on the one hand and antisocial and criminal behaviour on the other hand, we observe how neighbourhood levels of concentrated disadvantage, residential mobility and population density all increase the chances of residents encountering a combination of nuisance and antisocial or criminal neighbour problems over nuisance problems only or no problems at all. Conversely, a higher concentration of foreign-born residents is found to be associated with residents being more likely to experience nuisance or no problems over more criminal and antisocial forms.

Keywords::

• Neighbours
• neighbourhoods
• antisocial behaviour
• nuisance problems
• crime

Acknowledgements

The data for this paper were obtained as part of a longitudinal survey administered as part of the Australian Community Capacity Study. Wave 4 of the survey was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery grant [grant number DP120100190] awarded to Rebecca Wickes, Lynda Cheshire, Peter Walters, Jonathan Corcoran, Beverly Raphael, Melanie Taylor and Fran Norris. The authors acknowledge the anonymous reviewers in providing additional insights that have helped to strengthen this paper. The generosity of the management committee for the Australian Community Capacity Study in allowing us to add questions on neighbour problems to the fourth wave of the survey is also much appreciated.

Notes

¹ In the discussion of results we use the terms “neighbourhood” and “suburb” interchangeably. In Australia, the term “suburb” is used to refer to a relatively stable and demographically homogenous local area that in other contexts would be referred to as a “neighbourhood.” Suburbs are similar to census tracts in the USA and Canada and super output areas in the UK. However, Australian suburb boundaries are not determined by population size but instead by local councils, based on local/historical recognition of the area.

² This point was raised by one of our anonymous reviewers who observed in his or her own research how antisocial behaviour in neighbourhoods may or may not be ascribed to neighbours depending on how well neighbours—and particularly their children—are known.