For more than a century criminologists, journalists, politicians, and the general public have, in their various ways, been attempting to explain the quite evident links between crime and place. To unravel causal processes properly we need good science, and within that realm, short of difficult to implement experiments there is nothing more powerful than longitudinal studies of community processes and crime measured at the community level. The Australian Community Capacity Study is a landmark achievement because it puts Australia on the international stage of players in this great scientific enterprise. This book, by bringing together for the first time a wide range of studies of the ACCS data by first rate scholars focused on such hot button issues as immigration, hate crime, police violence, and the impact of natural disasters, deserves to be widely read not just by researchers and students but by the general public and policy makers who want to understand the unique strengths and weaknesses of Australian community life.Ross Homel, Foundation Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith UniversityIn the tradition of the best communities and crime scholarship, Wickes and Mazerolle, along with their colleagues, leverage data from a one-of-a-kind study, the Australian Community Capacity Study, to examine crime and crime control in the metropolis. Covering community dynamics related to racial and ethnic diversity, immigration, and social inequality to extra-community forces such as financial crises and ecological disasters, this edited collection on contemporary urban life offers readers a theoretically-informed, data-driven, and policy-relevant understanding of the community context of crime in Australia.Charis E. Kubrin, Professor, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, University of California, IrvineCriminologists have been talking about variation in informal social controls across communities for more than a century, but they have seldom had persuasive data that allowed a close look at the mechanisms that generate crime reductions. This book does just that, adding important data points to our understanding of crime and communities. The Australian Community Capacity Study (ACCS) used to generate insights in this volume ranks among the most important community level studies conducted by criminologists to date.David Weisburd, Distinguished Professor, Department of Criminology, Law and SocietyExecutive Director, Center for Evidence Based Crime Policy, George Mason University
