NCJ Number
221366
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 24 Issue: 4 Dated: December 2007 Pages: 679-704
Date Published
December 2007
Length
26 pages
Annotation
The purpose of this study was to investigate impacts of local violent crime rates on residents’ willingness to trust neighbors.
Abstract
The main implications are twofold. First, local reported violent crime rates from the period prior to the survey administration did reduce residents’ confidence in their neighbors. Second, the deleterious effects of crime on trust were somewhat contingent, depending on the response category of the outcome in question, whether status was partialled from crime or vice versa, and whether racial composition or racial heterogeneity was modeled at the neighborhood level. The results confirmed the adverse impacts of reported violent crime rates on perceived dependability of neighbors when the effects of status were not removed from crime. Those in higher-crime neighborhoods were less likely to strongly or weakly endorse fellow residents’ trustworthiness. The results showed that higher crime rates were linked with less local trust. Trust between neighbors is a key element of local social fabric. However, past work examining impacts of local crime on local social climate have rarely focused specifically on trust. This study sought to examine the connection with trust and the argument that higher crime should deepen distrust or the “crime atomizes community” argument and the “crime bands citizens together” argument suggesting higher crime should increase resident solidarity and therefore perhaps trust. Survey data from 2002 of 4,133 Philadelphia residents in 45 neighborhoods were combined with census and reported crime data to address these arguments. Tables, references