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Ashley Hicks

Project

Crime, Assets, and Community Collaboration: A Holistic Approach to Helping and Violence Reduction in Poor Urban Communities

Investigator

Ashley Hicks (Human Development and Family Science)

Abstract

Crime, Assets, and Community Collaboration: A holistic approach to helping and violence reduction in poor urban communities, attempts understanding crime and community capacity in an urban neighborhood in East side Columbus, Ohio. Using community and crime data this project analyzes how the process of "helping" occurs in urban communities and how community agencies and collaborative partnerships can be utilized as strategy to reduce violence in poor urban neighborhoods. It also attempts to use community and crime mapping to analyze the existing patterns of crime and helping in the target area. This project has four main objectives: 1) Test Venkatesh's (1999) three tier model of helping in urban, poor communities; 2) Analyze existing collaborative partnerships between community agencies in the target area; 3) Explore the ways in which existing collaborative partnerships can be utilized to foster community change, increase public safety and reduce crime in the target area; and 4) Utilize crime and community data to map the existing patterns of violent crimes and current community assets located in the target area and analyze the ways in which existing resources can be utilized as a means of reducing violence. This study will provide practical data driven strategies for urban community based crime and violence reduction initiatives. It will have important implications for strengthening collaborative partnerships in poor urban areas, using existing community resources as a means to combat concentrated areas of violence in neighborhoods.

Updates

November 2011
The funding that the CJRC provided for the "Crime, Assets, and Community Collaboration" project resulted in Ms. Hicks' successful collection of data and resultant completion her Master's thesis. She is currently working on revision of the thesis to submit to journals for publication at the beginning of the new year. Ms. Hicks was also able to attend the 2010 ASC conference and present her research in a symposia format.