Civic community theory is one of several ecological approaches to understanding the associations of crime with various characteristics of places. It was developed by Matt Lee, an American rural sociologist, and his colleagues, who published extensively on the results of various statistical tests using the theory’s framework in both criminological and other social science journals, mostly during the first decade of the twenty-first century.

It is similar to social disorganization theory, yet very distinctive from it. First, its approach begins from a non-criminological literature about the core elements of a civil society that define civility based on the strength of community groups and a culture whereby local citizens are involved in activities at the places where they live. Indicators for a strong local ecology includes such social characteristics as home ownership, locally-owned businesses and voter turnout, amongst others.

A second distinctive characteristic of civic community theory is that its origins are not based on an urban criminology, but on a body of previous scholarship in rural sociology. Rural sociologists have long examined how social change impacts the socio-cultural make-up of smaller places. Subsequently, some of these rural scholars turned their attention to examining how change influences the emergence of various social problems, such as crime. It is from this heritage of research and theory that civic community theory emerged.

It is similar to social disorganization and most other criminological theories of place because it views crime as a product of social change, assuming that change disrupts established forms of social control within a community. As civility declines, crime increases. In this sense, it resembles the systemic version of social disorganization theory which seeks to explain variations in crime rates based on the structure of localized networks of residents that, in turn, are presumed to control delinquent and criminal behaviours. Historically, much of this thinking recalls Durkheim’s ideas about social change and its impact on social solidarity that produces anomic conditions. Hence, patterns of crime are reflective of changes with major shifts in norms, values and social mores.

All of the research by Lee and colleagues relies on secondary data aggregated to the level of a United States county or other geographic entities, such as towns and cities.