Transcript Murder - Housing Studies Association

An economy of false securities? An
analysis of murders inside gated
residential developments in the US
Rowland Atkinson and Oliver Smith,
Centre for Urban Research (CURB),
Department of Sociology, University
of York
Overview
1. The role of housing in mediating broader
inequalities in respect of access to security
2. An examination of insecurity in secure
residential development
3. How is violence in such areas depicted?
Defining a gated community
• Two key features:
– Physical boundaries like gates and walls
(sometimes with guards or surveillance systems)
– A contractual, or socio-legal, neighbourhood
constitution which imposes payment of fees to
management organisation which services the
community
Extent
USA
UK
5.9% of households –
walled communities
3.4% controlled
access
1,000 GCs
Atkinson et al, 2002
Sanchez and Lang,
2005
Australia
2% h’holds in
guarded
communities
Atkinson and Tranter,
2011
New zones of
control
• Symbolic landscapes of
security and escape from
negative externalities of the
urban
• Fortification of
neighbourhoods and
domestic spaces
• Secessionary spaces of social
control and law enforcement
• Security as a ‘club good’
How safe are gated communities?
• High income gated communities,
statistically insignificant
differences in crime levels
compared with HI non-gated
• Low income gated communities
ALSO exhibit the same similarities
(Wilson-Doenges)
• GCs may hinder emergency
service access
• Learning codes, internal disorder
• The Martin case – gated and
prejudicial mentalities
Inequality, the club realm and extreme
risk
• Love and hate of
community/proximity:
– ‘the excessive opening up
(disclosure of a secret, allegiance,
obedience…) of one person to
another easily reverts to an
excremental repulsive intrusion… it
is highly hazardous to enter this
domain of the utmost intimacy, as
one gets more than one asked for’
(Zizek)
• Baumgartner – moral
minimalism
Methodology
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Lexis-Nexis search
50 cases
Date range: 2000 - 2012
Analysis of cases
Qualitative analysis of newswires
Related reportage identified through Google
searches [ongoing]
Findings
• Extent by type:
– Community (5)
– Breach (21)
– Intimate (31)
• Data limitations
Community homicide
• Denice Fox
– 57 years old, retired school
teacher
– Lived in Glen cove, Long
Island in $899,000 house
– Murdered by Evan
Marshall, 32, Aug 17th 2006
• Lived on same road with his
mother, didn’t know victim
• Psychosexual murder
• Was searching house for
money for drugs, when
interrupted by victim
Community homicide
• Sonia Dawes, 11
– Murdered by Uncle, William
Dawes
– Had been living with his sister,
girls mother, for a few weeks in
gated community in Laguna
Niguel, OC
– Neighbor Anne Whitney told
ABC7 she was "terrified." "I mean
you feel so safe," Whitney said.
"It's a gated community. You think
that, you know, you trust your
neighbors. You never know."
Community
• Stanley Nyberg, 61, Shot Dina
Camp
– Sky Country Club GC, Washington
– Long running boundary dispute
escalated into shooting
– Nyberg claimed he was afraid Camp
would hit him with a rock
Intimate homicides
• Bob Ward, 61, Real estate
magnate
– Isleworth country club
• Neighbours include Tiger Woods,
Shaquille O’Neill, house once
belonged to Arnold Palmer
– Shot and killed wife, Sept 2009
– Financial troubles
• Mortgage arrears (24x $16,841)
• Filed for bankruptcy
• James Kurtenbach, 48, Arson/Murder/fraud,
Oct 2008
– “Arson gone bad” – homicide Lt D. Burgos
– Owed $56,000 in back taxes
– Employee Joseph Neshelwat died in explosion
Breach
• Keith Adams, 28,
Construction worker
– Working inside GC
– Shot site Forman
dead and injured
coworker over
dispute, July 2001
Breach II
• Caroline Cody, 22, killed by
Donald Fair, Gainesville FL.
– Fair lived in apartments
adjoining Cody’s gated
residence
– Entered through broken
fence
– Killed Cody and stole car
– Family filed wrongful death
suit against apartment
owners for failing to provide
adequate security
Reflections
• Greatest risks are from within the community
or from partners
• Has gating facilitated forms of private violence
- abusive and violent action
• New debates raised about role of housing and
planning in questions about risk and violence
• Role of property developers in distracting
consumers from risks
End