Neighborhood Characteristics and the Social Control of Registered Sex Offenders

This study uses geospatial and regression analyses to examine the relationships among social disorganization, collective efficacy, social control, residence restrictions, spatial autocorrelation, and the neighborhood distribution of registered sex offenders (RSOs) in Chicago. RSOs were concentrated in neighborhoods that had higher levels of social disorganization and lower levels of collective efficacy, offered greater anonymity, and were near other neighborhoods with high concentrations of RSOs. Furthermore, social control mechanisms mediated some of the effects of structural disorganization. The neighborhoods where RSOs were likely to live did not exhibit characteristics that would support the informal social control of such offenders, as RSO legislation assumes.