| Crime at multi-family dwellings is an ongoing concern. Using concepts from environmental criminology, this dissertation adapts Madensen's (2007) model of bar place management to apartments. One aspect of this model, the relationship between ownership change of an apartment building and crime, is examined. I found that while about half of apartments change ownership during the period 2002-2009, serial ownership change is rare. Crime is heavily concentrated among apartments, with over half of crime occurring at just 10% of apartments and these extreme values of crime tend to drive the multivariate analysis. Ownership change and crime are associated with each other in a feedback system. Ownership change is more likely at apartments with a history of past crime, and ownership change is associated with a 10% increase in future crime counts. Neighborhood context has a complex relationship with significant variation between neighborhoods in both crime counts and in the relationship between ownership change and crime. In some neighborhoods, ownership change and crime are positively related; in other neighborhoods, the relationship is negative.;Even though my findings are sensitive to extreme values, methodology and model selection decisions, it is apparent that ownership change could be an important intervention point for crime prevention. Interventions such as landlord training should be targeted at high crime apartments which change ownership, while recognizing that the overwhelming majority of apartments and apartment owners have zero crime. |
