Delincuencia y violencia en entornos residenciales de Santiago de Chile

Abstract

Episodes of crime and violence in Santiago, Chile take place in given territories with certain urban and social characteristics. In accordance with studies performed in cities in the northern hemisphere, some of the most relevant social characteristics for explaining the territorial concentration of crime, and especially violent crimes, are social cohesion, informal social control, respect for the law, amongst others. These variables are related to the pro-social quality of relationships among neighbors, and are separate from traditional structural variables, such as the concentration of the socioeconomically disadvantaged. In this work we present and discuss empirical measures of these variables, measured in a representative sample of the residents of Santiago, Chile