Assessing the Relationship Between Neighborhood Structure, Perceived Disorder, and Fear of Crime

Download or read book Assessing the Relationship Between Neighborhood Structure, Perceived Disorder, and Fear of Crime written by Brittney Kate Scarborough and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines individual's fear of crime based on the neighborhood in which they live. Because an individual's fear of crime may be independent of any actual victimization, integrating factors, namely neighborhood context, provides a perspective on understanding fear. By controlling for race, age, gender and education, neighborhood structure emerges as a proxy for citizen's fear. Also, the factor of police/citizen interaction is acknowledged to understand relationships with police and the community to distinguish its effect on citizen's fear of crime. Using a survey distributed to urban Kansas City residents, individuals were asked to report on proximate level of fear, neighborhood disorder and level of police/citizen interaction. Additional neighborhood structural characteristics are obtained from the U.S. Census. Considering various sources (i.e. individual characteristics and neighborhood context) provides an opportunity to develop a new understanding of fear and policies to reduce fear.