In a study conducted in Columbus, researchers found that neighborhoods with more dogs had lower rates of homicide, robbery, and somewhat increased assault, compared to areas with fewer dogs. The results, recently published in the journal Social Forces, show that people walking their dogs tend to have “eyes on the street,” said Nicolo Pinchak, the study’s lead author and a doctoral student in sociology at Ohio State, which discourages crime. can do. university. “People walking their dogs are essentially patrolling their neighborhoods,” Pinchak said. “They see when things are not right, and when there are suspicious outsiders in the area. It could be a crime deterrent.”
Sociologists believe that a combination of mutual trust and local surveillance among neighborhood residents can deter criminals. “We thought that dog walking might hold up very well, which is one reason we decided to do this study,” says co-author Christopher Browning, a professor of sociology at Ohio State.
For the study, researchers looked at crime data from 2014 to 2016 for 595 census block groups — the equivalent of neighborhoods — in the Columbus area. They obtained survey data from a marketing firm that asked residents of Columbus in 2013 if they had a dog in their home. Finally, they used data from the Adolescent Health and Development in Reference Study (which Browning runs) to measure trust in individual neighborhoods.
Residents were asked to rate how much they agreed that “people on the streets can be trusted” in their neighborhood. Pinchak said trust between neighbors is an important part of preventing crime, as it shows that residents will help each other when faced with danger and have a sense of “collective efficacy” that they positively exert on their territory. can make an impact.
But in high-trust neighborhoods, those with a high concentration of dogs showed an additional drop in crime compared to those with a low concentration of dogs.
Pinchak said. “Trust doesn’t help the neighborhood that much, unless you have people in the streets watching what’s going on. That’s what walking the dog does,” Pinchak said. Dogs always have a crime-fighting advantage over cats and other pets that don’t require walks. “When people are walking their dogs, they interact, they pet each other’s dogs. Sometimes they know the dog’s name and not even the owners. They learn what’s going on and detect potential problems.”
The results showed that the combination of trust and dog-walking helped reduce street crimes: crimes such as homicides and robberies that occur in public places, including streets and sidewalks.
The study found that more dogs in a neighborhood were also related to fewer property crimes such as theft, regardless of how much residents trusted each other. This is because barking and visible dogs can keep criminals away from buildings where dogs are found – and not require neighborhood trust and monitoring as a factor, as it is in street crimes.
The protective effect of dogs and trust was found even when a wide range of other factors related to crime were taken into account, including the proportion of young males in the neighborhood, residential instability and socioeconomic status. Overall, the results suggest that relying heavily on your neighbors to prevent crime is beneficial – especially if you add a lot of dogs and dog walkers. “There’s already a lot of research showing that dogs are good for the health and well-being of their human companions,” Pinchak said. “Our study adds another reason why dogs are good for us.”
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