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If you want to find a safe neighborhood to live in, choose one where the residents trust each other – and have a lot of dogs to walk.
In a study conducted in Columbus, researchers found that neighborhoods with more dogs had lower rates of homicide, robbery and, to a lesser extent, aggravated assaults compared to areas with fewer dogs, at least when residents also had high levels of trust in each other.
The results suggest that people walking their dogs puts more “eyes on the street,” which can discourage crime, said Nicolo Pinchak, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in sociology at The Ohio State University.
“People walking their dogs are essentially patrolling their neighborhoods,” Pinchak said. “They see when things are not right, and when there are suspect outsiders in the area. It can be a crime deterrent.”
The study was published recently in the journal Social Forces.
Sociologists have long theorized that a combination of mutual trust and local surveillance among residents of a neighborhood can deter criminals, said study co-author Christopher Browning, a professor of sociology at Ohio State.
But there hasn’t been a good measure of how residents provide surveillance of neighborhood streets. “We thought that dog walking probably captures that pretty well, which is one reason why we decided to do this study,” Browning said.
For the study, researchers looked at crime statistics from 2014 to 2016 for 595 census block groups – the equivalent of neighborhoods – in the Columbus area.
They obtained survey data from a marketing firm that asked Columbus residents in 2013 if they had a dog in their household.
news.osu.edu
In a study conducted in Columbus, researchers found that neighborhoods with more dogs had lower rates of homicide, robbery and, to a lesser extent, aggravated assaults compared to areas with fewer dogs, at least when residents also had high levels of trust in each other.
The results suggest that people walking their dogs puts more “eyes on the street,” which can discourage crime, said Nicolo Pinchak, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in sociology at The Ohio State University.
“People walking their dogs are essentially patrolling their neighborhoods,” Pinchak said. “They see when things are not right, and when there are suspect outsiders in the area. It can be a crime deterrent.”
The study was published recently in the journal Social Forces.
Sociologists have long theorized that a combination of mutual trust and local surveillance among residents of a neighborhood can deter criminals, said study co-author Christopher Browning, a professor of sociology at Ohio State.
But there hasn’t been a good measure of how residents provide surveillance of neighborhood streets. “We thought that dog walking probably captures that pretty well, which is one reason why we decided to do this study,” Browning said.
For the study, researchers looked at crime statistics from 2014 to 2016 for 595 census block groups – the equivalent of neighborhoods – in the Columbus area.
They obtained survey data from a marketing firm that asked Columbus residents in 2013 if they had a dog in their household.
More dogs in the neighborhood often means less crime
If you want to find a safe neighborhood to live in, choose one where the residents trust each other – and have a lot of dogs to walk.In a study conducted in Columbus, researchers found that neighborhoods with more dogs had lower rates of homicide, robbery and, to a lesser extent, aggravated...
