NCJ Number
242655
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 41 Issue: 1 Dated: January/February 2013 Pages: 1-11
Date Published
February 2013
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This research examined the relationship between neighborhood residents' perceptions of "collective efficacy" (a neighborhood's capacity to create and enforce normative levels of pro-social behavior), perceptions of "incivilities" (the presence of physical and/or social disorder in a neighborhood), and residents' fear of crime; and it determined whether any relationship differed across neighborhoods.
Abstract
The study found that perceptions of collective efficacy had a significant relationship with fear of crime in two of the four neighborhoods examined in Miami-Dade County. Other important relationships for fear of crime that differed among the four neighborhoods were satisfaction with police, perceptions of incivilities, and the use of neighborhood resources. Possible explanations for these findings are proposed. These findings suggest that context is critical when designing interventions intended to combat fear of crime in a neighborhood. Strategies that may be effective in one neighborhood may not be effective in another neighborhood. The data used in this research came from a larger study that examined the relationship between collective efficacy and crime in Miami-Dade County. Researchers selected a random sample of households from the four neighborhoods for participation in community surveys. The surveys used a database of all active mailing addresses known to the U.S. Postal Service. Structural equation models were used to examine the relationships between perceptions of collective efficacy, perceptions of incivilities, and fear of crime for each neighborhood separately. Tests for invariance were conducted in order to determine whether the coefficients from these models differed across neighborhoods. 4 tables, 41 references, and appended survey questions used in scale construction