Neighborhood disorder, integration, and the fear of crime

Three distinct but related models of fear of crime have emerged in the research literature: victimization, disorder, and community concern/community control. Of the three, the community concern/community control model remains least developed. This study seeks to extend the research by including several distinct dimensions of the community concerns model, along with variables drawn from the victimization and disorder frameworks, in an overall model of fear of crime. The model then is analyzed with data from a random sample of residents from a northwestern U.S. city. The inclusion of variables from all three perspectives results in a model that accounts for a substantial amount of the variance in fear of crime. The model next is examined for three subsamples of respondents drawn from low-, medium-, and high-disorder neighborhoods. Finally, policy implications, particularly for the community policing movement, are discussed.

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