NCJ Number
88459
Date Published
1982
Length
49 pages
Annotation
Citizen involvement in providing community safety is the product of fear and concern about crime, individual and household characteristics, and neighborhood social conditions.
Abstract
These variables influence both the extent and forms of citizen efforts to coproduce public safety along with police. The organization and activities of police agencies indirectly affect citizen efforts through their mediation influences on public perceptions of police performance and on fear of crime. At least some forms of citizen efforts are substitutes to the perceived inadequacies of service delivery by the police. Study data came from 24 communities located in 3 metropolitan areas: Rochester, New York; St. Louis, Missouri; and Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida. In each of 60 neighborhoods, 200 randomly selected citizens were surveyed by telephone. The interviews covered fear and concern about crime, victimization experiences in the past year, social and economic characteristics of the household, evaluation of police services, and crime prevention activities performed by household members. Over half of the respondents had added extra locks to their home. Substantial proportions had also taken such measures as identifying their property, buying a watch dog, and buying a light-timing device. Appendixes presenting study variables and data tables, footnotes, figures, and 30 references are included.