Do Neighborhoods Generate Fear of Crime? : an Empirical Test Using the British Crime Survey

Home Office (Grant number: PTA-033-2005-00028). We gratefully acknowledge the three anonymous reviewers, whose comments and suggestions improved an earlier version of this paper. Criminologists have long contended that neighborhoods are important determinants of how individuals perceive their risk of criminal victimization. Yet, despite the theoretical importance and policy-relevance of these claims, the empirical evidence-base is surprisingly thin and inconsistent. Drawing on data from a national probability sample of individuals, linked to independent measures of neighborhood demographic characteristics, visual signs of physical disorder, and reported crime, we test four hypotheses about the mechanisms through which neighborhoods influence fear of crime. Our large sample size, analytical approach and the independence of our empirical measures enable us to overcome some of the limitations that have hampered much previous research into this question. We find that neighborhood structural characteristics, visual signs of disorder, and recorded crime all have direct and independent effects on individual level fear of crime. Additionally, we demonstrate that individual differences in fear of crime are strongly moderated by neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics; between group differences in expressed fear of crime are both exacerbated and ameliorated by the characteristics of the areas in which people live. interests include criminal statistics, neighborhood effects, missing data problems, and survey methodology. Methods at the University of Southampton. His research interests are in the areas of survey methodology, statistical methods, public opinion, and political behaviour.