Assessing the Influence of Neighbourhood Disadvantage on Violent Crime among Child Psychiatric Patients

Abstract

The aim of this study is to assess the effect of neighbourhood socioeconomic disadvantage on violent crime among a group of children and adolescents who attended Psychiatric Child and Youth Clinics in Stockholm, Sweden. Data is drawn from The Stockholm Child-psychiatric database, which consists of approximately 7600 children and adolescents who consulted the Psychiatric Child and Youth Clinics (PBU) in the county of Stockholm. The children were born in 1981-1989, and finished their contacts with the Psychiatric Child and Youth Clinics between 2003 and 2005. Using multilevel techniques, incidences of violent crime in police registers were related to characteristics of the neighbourhood where the children and adolescents lived. About 7 percent of the variance in violent crime incidents is found at the neighbourhood level. Controlling for individual characteristics reduces the between-neighbourhood variance, though a significant neighbourhood effect remains. When neighbourhood-level disadvantage is added to the model, the between-neighbourhood variance in incidence of violent crime is further reduced, but still significant. This implies that neighbourhood characteristics, in addition to individual characteristics, should be considered in the design and development of psychiatric care for children, and for the development of strategies to prevent future criminality.