Thesis
Fear and my community: what does my skin color have to do with it?
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2011
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/101032
Abstract
The fear of crime literature in urban areas includes four models: the indirect victimization model, the model of instabilities, the sub-cultural diversity model, and the community concern model. These models are similar to processes described in other bodies of literature; the comparability between the models allows for the application of criminology and community theories to the models for the fear of crime. The hypotheses for this paper include concepts from multiple theoretical bodies and attempt to discover variations on the effect the perception of community qualities and demographic variables have on an individual's fear of crime and perception of violence, based on that individual's race. The Project for Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) provided the data that will be used for this analysis. The first regression model in this project does not separate the sample population according to their race and provides a basis for comparison to the regression models that are racially disaggregated. The racially disaggregated regression models showed that some of an individual's perceptions of his social environment are relevant to fear of crime and perceptions of violence across all racial groups. Social cohesion and an individual's participation in local organizations and clubs had a similar effect on fear of crime and perception of violence for all races. On other points in the regression models the effects of the variables digress. Fear of crime is affected by the variables regarding the perception of community that measure socialization quality; perceptions of the social environment act differently on the perception of violence and the fear of crime, controlling for the perception of violence, across racial groups. The perceptions of a neighborhood's social environment identified which types of social interaction are the most beneficial to the reduction of fear of crime and perception of violence for each race. As well as the individual respondent's race, the racial balance in each resident's neighborhood had an effect on their fear of crime and perception of violence. If an urban area has the goal of reducing its citizen's assessment of crime and violence, the race of their population must be considered.
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Details
- Title
- Fear and my community
- Creators
- Meaghann Rowena Jones
- Contributors
- Jennifer Schwartz (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Sociology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; Pullman, Wash. :
- Identifiers
- 99900525188601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis