Converging neighbourhood vulnerabilities: the impact of exogenous shocks on crime

Black Swan events are rare, unplanned incidents that have significant implications for financial markets, political economies and the well-being of society. These events may occur on a city, country or global scale. The consequences of these events vary substantially across contexts. For neighbourhoods, exogenous shocks can alter the social-demographic context and in turn destabilise crime trajectories. In this chapter, we draw on waves 1 to 4 of the Australian Community Capacity Study (ACCS) Brisbane to examine the impact of two ‘black swan’ events on contextual characteristics and crime in Brisbane neighbourhoods: the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the 2011 Brisbane Flood event. Using group-based trajectory analyses, we examine how the trends in violence, property crime, public nuisance and drug use have changed over time in Brisbane in response to the two exogenous shocks, both of which surreptitiously occurred during the life of the ACCS. We find that in the majority of neighbourhoods, crime remains low and stable during the study period with limited evidence that either event disrupted trajectories. In a small proportion of Brisbane neighbourhoods characterised by high levels of crime, both events influenced crime trends. The extent and direction of post-event changes in the trajectories of this group differed by crime type. We conclude that, overall, crime is remarkably stable during our study period and that similarly, neighbourhood processes are also remarkably stable suggesting that any change in crime or the social processes theorised to control crime in the wake of ‘black swan’ events may be short lived.