UC Irvine

In this article, we explore the literature on collective efficacy and crime, but pay attention to three major challenges that confront this literature, and researchers moving forward with the concept in studies of neighborhoods. These challenges are (1) precisely defining and measuring the concept of collective efficacy; (2) determining whether the notions of general cohesion and trust in neighborhoods are really components of collective efficacy, or determinants of it; and (3) whether neighborhood crime can have feedback effects on the level of collective efficacy.