NCJ Number
189147
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 7 Issue: 6 Dated: June 2001 Pages: 638-661
Date Published
June 2001
Length
24 pages
Annotation
A study of the extent to which various factors, including prior victimization, perceptions of neighborhood disorder, routine activities, and neighborhood satisfaction predict women’s perceptions of personal safety used survey and interview data from women living in six urban public housing complexes in eastern Ontario, Canada.
Abstract
Participants received the questionnaires by mail and personal distribution. The questionnaires asked one person in each household older than 18 years to complete a Quality of Neighborhood Life Survey. The survey produced 325 usable questionnaires. Fifty-one qualitative interviews were arranged separately. Most of the analysis focused on 219 women who amounted to 70 percent of the sample. Results revealed that 38.4 percent of the women were either married, dating, or living with someone and that the rest were either single, divorced, separated, or widowed. Eighty-nine percent reported their household income as low. Nearly half reported that their major income source was welfare payments; an additional 27 percent stated that they relied on disability payments. About two-thirds reported that they were either English-Canadian or French-Canadian. Results also revealed that both disorder and neighborhood satisfaction had a moderately strong impact on perceptions of insecurity. In contrast, prior victimization was a negligible factor. The analysis concluded that a relationship exists between a neighborhood’s physical appearance and people’s worries about their safety. Findings suggested that improving services such as removing garbage, graffiti, and vandalized items may reduce fear of crime as much as would reducing crime. Tables, notes, and 64 references (Author abstract modified)