Collective threat, trust, and the sense of personal control

A threatening and dangerous neighborhood may produce distressing emotions of anxiety, anger, and depression among the individuals who live there because residents find these neighborhoods subjectively alienating. The author introduces the idea that neighborhood disorder indicates collective threat, which is alienating-shaping perceptions of powerlessness and mistrust. The author presents a theory of trust that posits that mistrust develops in places where resources are scarce and threat is common and among individuals with few resources and who feel powerless to avoid or manage the threat. Perceived powerlessness develops with exposure to uncontrollable, negative conditions such as crime, danger, and threat in one's neighborhood. Thus, neighborhood disorder, common in disadvantaged neighborhoods, influences mistrust directly and indirectly by increasing perceptions of powerlessness among residents, which amplify disorder's effect on mistrust. The very thing needed to protect disadvantaged residents from the negative effects of their environment-a sense of personal control-is eroded by that environment in a process that the author calls structural amplification. Powerlessness and mistrust in turn are distressing, increasing levels of anxiety, anger, and depression.     

Implications of urbanism for the use of local news media: effects of population concentration on types of news acquisition in Japan

The Internet, a global computer network enabling people to send and receive information anywhere in the world, also functions as a local medium of communication. This study focuses on the role of the Internet in transmitting local news and examines the effects of community population concentrations as socio-ecological environments on the use of local news media consumed online and offline. Data from 1367 respondents across 156 Japanese communities were used to analyze the relationships between type of community and type of news source. The findings suggest that people who live in highly populated communities tend more often to use the Internet to access local news, whereas those in less populated communities tend to use more traditional mass media. However, the results of this study did not show a relationship between population concentrations within communities and the acquisition of international news, nor did the social features of residents adequately explain the effects of population concentration on the acquisition of local news. These results are consistent with theoretical predictions based on network externalities, urbanism, and collective action. The findings indicate that local news consumption is embedded in local social contexts in a way that international news is not, reinforcing the importance of urbanism in the information age.     

Watching the detectives: crime programming, fear of crime, and attitudes about the criminal justice system

Research demonstrates a complex relationship between television viewing and fear of crime. Social critics assert that media depictions perpetuate the dominant cultural ideology about crime and criminal justice. This article examines whether program type differentially affects fear of crime and perceptions of the crime rate. Next, it tests whether such programming differentially affects viewers' attitudes about the criminal justice system, and if these relationships are mediated by fear. Results indicated that fear mediated the relationship between viewing nonfictional shows and lack of support for the justice system. Viewing crime dramas predicted support for the death penalty, but this relationship was not mediated by fear. News viewership was unrelated to either fear or attitudes. The results support the idea that program type matters when it comes to understanding people's fear of crime and their attitudes about criminal justice.     

Neighborhood co-offending networks,structural embeddedness,and violent crime in Chicago

Neighborhood disparities in crime are a persistent feature of U.S. cities. Scholars have documented that both local structural conditions and characteristics of spatially proximate communities influence neighborhood crime rates. Previous studies on neighborhood inequality in crime, however, are limited by their focus on identifying average spillover effects between pairs of spatially contiguous neighborhoods, and have neglected to consider how the broader social organization of the city influences local outcomes. This study examines the role of neighborhood-level criminal networks in shaping the distribution of crime throughout cities. Employing arrest records and survey data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, we construct a neighborhood-level co-offending network for Chicago for 2001. We use this network to investigate how a focal neighborhood’s homicide rate is influenced by its structural embeddedness within the larger inter-neighborhood co-offending network. Results indicate that a neighborhood’s embeddedness increases the local homicide rate, even after controlling for the neighborhood’s internal propensity toward crime and accounting for unobserved spatial processes.     

Exploring the Social Construction of Crime by Neighborhood: News Coverage of Crime in Boston

ABSTRACT

Information disseminated by the news shapes the way that the public perceives criminal events, often providing a distorted view of crime. Previous research has largely overlooked neighborhoods in discussions of how the news portrays crime. This study examines the ways that the news media report the neighborhoods in which homicides, robberies, and assaults are committed. Multiple theoretical perspectives rooted in the law of opposites and racial typification provide differing explanations for the reporting of crime. Using Boston as a test site, this study employs a content analysis of The Boston Globe crime articles to identify the neighborhoods in which instances of homicide, robbery, and assault receive coverage. A comparison with official crime data from the Boston Police Department suggests differences in neighborhood reporting trends for robbery and assault but not for homicide. Specifically, the news media tend to disproportionately report more robberies and assaults in neighborhoods with lower levels of neighborhood disadvantage. Implications for the social construction of crime and neighborhoods as well as criminal justice response for disadvantaged neighborhoods are discussed.     

Fear of crime among vulnerable populations: Homeless women

Are the factors associated with the fear of crime in the general population the same as those operating with especially vulnerable subgroups? If not, how and why are they different? Previous studies concerning the fear of crime have identified certain vulnerability factors as being associated with higher levels of fear. These include, for instance, being female, living in certain ghetto areas, and being elderly. Because many of these studies focused upon fear in the general population, however, they assumed a certain homogeneity of fear, whether it be among women, among the elderly, among Blacks, etc. They failed to make distinctions based upon relative degrees of vulnerability. They also generally neglected the notion of fear management—of coping. This research addresses these concerns. Two hundred homeless women (defined here as homeless adult females living on the streets), were interviewed in New York City. Among other things, they were asked about their crime risks and their crime fears. Results indicate that fear of crime is higher among those street women who have suffered past victimization. It is also slightly higher among those who perceived themselves to be more vulnerable. Perhaps most interesting is the finding that there is only a low correlation between self-perceived vulnerability to victimization and the fear of crime. This supports the proposition that these are two distinctive concepts; and, most importantly, it does so in the context of a particularly vulnerable population. Possible explanations of a seemingly paradoxical situation, namely high vulnerability existing side by side with a low fear of crime, are explored and discussed.     

Social fabric and fear of crime: Considering spatial location and time of day

Criminologists have long noted that social networks play a role in influencing residents' fear of crime, but findings vis a vis the exact nature of that role have been mixed. More social ties may be associated with less fear of crime through their role in collective action, trust, and emotional support, but also with more fear of crime because of their role in the diffusion of information on local crime patterns. In what follows, we suggest temporal and spatial distinctions in how social ties matter for fear of crime with respect to these different mechanisms. Analysis of data from a large scale egocentric network study in Southern California provides evidence for these claims.     

PREDICTORS OF FEAR OF CRIMINAL VICTIMIZATION AT SCHOOL AMONG ADOLESCENTS

Adolescent crime at school, as well as adolescent fear of crime at school, have increasingly become serious social problems. Although many studies have been conducted examining the predictors of fear of crime among adults in various settings, fear of criminal victimization among adolescents at school has been practically ignored. Using a representative sample of 742 high school students from a southeastern state, this study examined the predictors of adolescent fear of crime at school in an attempt to determine whether they are similar to predictors of adult fear of crime. Results indicate that, although the predictors of fear among adolescents are, in many cases, similar to those of adults, there are important differences. As expected, youths with lower levels of perceived safety at school and youths who perceive their neighborhoods as exhibiting signs of incivility were more likely to be fearful of criminal victimization at school. Interestingly, however, there were important differences between adolescents and adults regarding the effects of race, gender, and victimization experience and fear of crime. The results from this study indicate that the effects of race and victimization experience on fear of crime vary by gender: Namely, Black males were more fearful than White males, and female victims of crime were more fearful than females who had not been victimized by crime. This study suggests that the phenomena that underlie fear of crime among adults are somewhat different than those of adolescents.     

The representation of women and girls of color in United States crime news

There is a large body of literature examining the media portrayals of white females as both victims and offenders in crime news, but very little is known about how minority females—including Black, Latina, Middle Eastern, Native American, and Asian women and girls—are portrayed in these roles. In this literature review, I discuss general stereotypes surrounding women of color and their depictions within crime news stories as both victims and offenders. An examination of crime news media portrayals of minority females reveals that outdated and harmful stereotypes provide media personnel frames with which to write their stories. The negative portrayals of minority women and girls—as both victims and offenders—serve to reinforce racist beliefs and affect how consumers view political issues.     

Neighborhood disadvantage, disorder, and health.

We examine the question of whether living in a disadvantaged neighborhood damages health, over and above the impact of personal socioeconomic characteristics. We hypothesize that (1) health correlates negatively with neighborhood disadvantage adjusting for personal disadvantage, and that (2) neighborhood disorder mediates the association, (3) partly because disorder and the fear associated with it discourage walking and (4) partly because they directly impair health. Data are from the 1995 Community, Crime, and Health survey, a probability sample of 2,482 adults in Illinois, with linked information about the respondent's census tract. We find that residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods have worse health (worse self-reported health and physical functioning and more chronic conditions) than residents of more advantaged neighborhoods. The association is mediated entirely by perceived neighborhood disorder and the resulting fear. It is not mediated by limitation of outdoor physical activity. The daily stress associated with living in a neighborhood where danger, trouble, crime and incivility are common apparently damages health. We call for a bio-demography of stress that links chronic exposure to threatening conditions faced by disadvantaged individuals in disadvantaged neighborhoods with physiological responses that may impair health.     

Street Traffic,Social Integration,and Fear of Crime*

Drawing on the work of Jacobs, Newman, and Gardiner, among others, this paper investigates fear of crime by urban residents as a consequence of two interrelated characteristics of neighborhoods: 1) the perceived volume of street usage and 2) the degree of residents' social integration into the neighborhood. Secondary analysis of a 1975 survey shows that, counter to previous hypotheses, perception of increased street traffic leads to greater fear. However, when controlling for social integration, we find that for those who are socially integrated perceived volume of street traffic has no relationship to fear, while for those not socially integrated the greater the perceived street usage the greater the fear. Three mechanisms by which social integration may reduce fear of people on the streets are considered: 1) reducing the proportion of strangers versus acquaintances on the street; 2) providing networks of potential assistance; and 3) reducing the strangeness of the streets' daily rhythms and routines. We conclude that both physical design and social factors must be interrelated in attempts to understand fear of crime and in designing ameliorative programs.     

Children and the Discourse of Fear

The news media, a dominant source of information about social issues, use entertainment formats to organize reports that audiences will understand. Part of this organized effort is the use of a discourse of fear, or the pervasive communication, symbolic awareness, and expectation that danger and risk are central features of everyday life. Reliant on formal agents of social control as news sources about fear, news reports tend to repeat certain words, themes, and perspectives that support more social control. Although associated with crime, the discourse of fear includes other topics and concerns as well. A qualitative content analysis approach, “tracking discourse,” permits a mapping of discourse over time and across various topics. Analysis of the use of fear in three major newspapers during 1987–1996 shows that it has increased; that a large part of the discourse of fear includes children and the spaces they occupy (e.g., schools and neighborhoods); and that it changed from a focus on specific events in the 1980s to a more generalized, pervasive perspective in the 1990s, peaking in about 1994. It is argued that this is important for making claims about “necessary” social action to protect children, as well as protect us from children. Fear is the path to the dark side. —Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace     

Narratives of Crime and Criminals: How Places Socially Construct the Crime Problem1

A common narrative about crime in the contemporary United States is that offenders are primarily young black men living in poor urban neighborhoods committing violent and drug‐related crimes. There is also a local context to community, crime, and fear that influences this narrative. In this article, I address how narratives of crime and criminals play out differently within particular places. The article is based on participant observation and interviews conducted in two high‐crime Boston‐area communities. Although both communities are concerned with stereotypical offenders, there are differential community constructions of crime, formed through interactions between crime narratives and place identities. In one, crime is a community problem, in which both offenders and victims are community members. In the other, outsiders commit crime against community members. Media portrayals of crime and community, community race and class identities, and concerns over neighborhood change all contribute to place‐specific framing of “the crime problem.” These frames, in turn, shape both intergroup dynamics and support for criminal justice policy.     

Neighborhood mechanisms and the spatial dynamics of birth weight

This study addresses two questions about why neighborhood contexts matter for individuals via a multilevel, spatial analysis of birthweight for 101,662 live births within 342 Chicago neighborhoods. First, what are the mechanisms through which neighborhood structural composition is related to health? The results show that mechanisms related to stress and adaptation (violent crime, reciprocal exchange and participation in local voluntary associations) are the most robust neighborhood-level predictors of birth weight. Second, are contextual influences on health limited to the immediate neighborhood or do they extend to a wider geographic context? The results show that contextual effects on birth weight extend to the social environment beyond the immediate neighborhood, even after adjusting for potentially confounding covariates. These findings suggest that the theoretical understanding and empirical estimation of 'neighborhood effects' on health are bolstered by collecting data on more causally proximate social processes and by taking into account spatial interdependencies among neighborhoods.     

Micro-structure in micro-neighborhoods: A new social distance measure,and its effect on individual and aggregated perceptions of crime and disorder

This study links social network methodology with the social disorganization literature to test the effect of block-level social distance on neighborhood perceived crime and disorder. Employing a unique study design that allows creating matrices of social distance (based on demographic characteristics) between 11 residents on each of over 650 blocks at three time points, we find that more socially distant residents perceive more disorder than their neighbors. Consistent with the bridging social capital literature, overall social distance in the block has a curvilinear relationship with perceived crime. And blocks with two cohesive subgroups, based on social distance, have lower levels of perceived disorder.     

Women's fear of crime: A rural perspective

This paper examines women's experience of fear of crime in rural areas. It argues that much existing research on issues of gender, fear and safety have focused on urban areas and that as a result we know relatively little about women's experience of fear in a rural context. As well as arguing that we need to redress the balance and respond to the dearth of knowledge about rural women's fear, the paper asserts the importance of a rural perspective in understanding the relationship between fear and the social and cultural construction of place. The rural in particular provides an important site for such an understanding since, as is argued here, the notion of safety is central to constructions of rurality. The paper presents data on rural women's experience of fear and crime from research carried out in New Zealand and the UK. It draws on work undertaken in four rural communities and begins to identify the extent and nature of women's fears and how these relate to their experience of rurality. The paper shows how while popular constructions of the rural as friendly, safe and largely crime free endure, there is a recognition amongst rural women of the growing problems surrounding personal safety. It also demonstrates the importance of social constructions of the rural community in identifying the relevance of the ‘stranger’ and the marginalised ‘other’ to women's feelings of fear.     

visualizing white‐collar crime

This study examines how film‐makers construct images of white‐collar crime in genre film. Data consist of twenty‐four white‐collar films in two genres: thrillers and comedies. Results indicate that images of white‐collar crime vary significantly by genre. Thrillers contain few visuals of white‐collar crimes and white‐collar offenders. Instead film‐makers use more familiar images of violence to create thrills. Comic film‐makers use standard sight gags to make images of white‐collar offenders and their crimes funny. When comic film‐makers find humor in the content of the subject matter, they construct images of white‐collar criminals and their crimes to clearly communicate the structure of each joke to the audience. Visual images of victims are not predominant in these films, especially in white‐collar comedies. The analysis reveals more than film‐making techniques. It begins to uncover cultural codes that frame white‐collar crime and illuminate its relative unimportance in the public arena, especially when compared to other crimes.     

Neighborhood responses to disorder and local attachments: The systemic model of attachment,social disorganization,and neighborhood use value

This paper investigates neighborhood-level connections between ecological structure, responses to disorder, and local attachment and social involvement. We develop predictions integrating the systemic model of community attachment, neighborhood use value, and the social disorganization perspective. The systemic model predicts neighborhood stability will deepen attachment and local involvement; the social disorganization perspective anticipates effects of stability on responses to disorder; and neighborhood use value suggests effects of status, racial composition, and problems such as crime and deterioration on attachment. We further propose, building on earlier work, that attachment may influence responses to disorder, or vice versa. Data include resident surveys, census information, on-site assessments, and crime rates from 66 randomly selected Baltimore, Maryland, neighborhoods. In support, respectively, of the systemic and neighborhood use value models, we find strong impacts of stability and class on neighborhood attachment/involvement. Neighborhood fear and perceived informal social control depend upon emotional investment and social integration. We see no overall impacts of deterioration on responses to disorder, calling into question some key aspects of the incivilities thesis. Earlier investigations of deterioration and responses to disorder that excluded person-place transactions may have been misspecified. Results underscore the strong relationship between person-environment transactions and responses to disorder. Asking how to encourage citizens to resist disorder is questioning, in part, how to increase the bonds residents have with the locale and with one another. Portions of an earlier version of this paper were presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, Los Angeles, August 1994.     

Fear of property crime: examining the effects of victimization, vicarious victimization, and perceived risk

Fear of crime research has primarily focused on fear of crime in general or on fear of specific types of violent crimes. This study builds from this line of research by focusing exclusively on the night fear of six types of property crimes, including fear of burglary while away from home, vehicle theft, bicycle theft, property theft, vandalism, and vehicle burglary. This study examines the effects of victimization, vicarious victimization, and perceived risk on fear of property crime. Survey data from college students reveal that victimization and vicarious victimization were not significant predictors of fear of property crime, whereas perceived risk was a consistent and significant predictor of fear of all property crimes.     

Strangers,Acquaintances, and Victims: Victimization and Concern About Crime Among Women

Women report greater concerns about the danger posed by strangers despite greater victimization by acquaintances. Using a survey of Seattle residents, this article investigates one understudied dimension of this seeming incongruity: the actual effect of victimization by a stranger or acquaintance on concerns about crime. The results suggest different patterns for different crimes: relationship to the offender does not matter for burglaries while acquaintance sexual assaults and stranger nonsexual assaults, respectively, hold the largest associations with concerns. Implications are discussed for research on fear of crime, acquaintance victimizations, and perceptions of neighborhoods.