Fear of crime among inner-city African Americans / Yolanda M. Scott.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Scott, Yolanda M.

Contributor:

Class of 1939 Fund.

Series:

Criminal justice (LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC)

Criminal justice recent scholarship

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans--Crimes against.

African Americans.

Fear of crime--United States.

Fear of crime.

United States.

Physical Description:

xiii, 167 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : LFB Scholarly Pub., 2001.

Summary:

Scott uses a systemic social-control approach to explain inner-city African Americans? fear of crime from their perspective. Perceptions of neighborhood disorder (intra-community control) and views of local police (extra-community control) predict fear of local violent and property crime. Perceived crime-risk is a mediating factor between these fears and the two systemic factors. The systemic argument was supported: perceived local disorder and negative views of police increased residents? fear of crime. Central to any reduction in inner-city African Americans? fear of crime is their perception that there be strong intra- and extra-community control barriers between themselves and crime

Contents:

Introduction: Understanding African Americans' Fear of Victimization 1

1. The Role of Perceived Systemic Control 5

Systemic Social Disorganization Theory 13

2. Examining the Fear of Victimization Literature 29

Conceptual Dilemmas in the Study of Fear 30

The Problem of Specification 33

Measurement Issues 35

Sampling Issues 43

Disorder and Fear of Victimization 45

Perceived Crime-Risk and Fear of Victimization 49

Local Police, Perceived Crime-Risk, and Fear of Victimization 53

Socio-Demographic Characteristics, Perceived Crime-Risk, and Fear of Victimization 61

3. Modeling African Americans' Fear of Victimization 65

The Models 65

Hypotheses 68

The Study 74

The Data 74

A Brief Description of the City, Neighborhoods, and Sample 77

Operationalization of Variables 80

4. Results 93

Zero-Ordered Correlations Among All Model Variables 93

Multivariate Results 101

Perceived Crime-Risk 101

Fear of Personal Crime 104

Fear of Property Crime 108

5. Discussion, Conclusions, and Social Policy Implications 113

Synopsis 113

Discussion of Results 114

Linkages between Disorder, Perceived Crime-Risk, and Offense Specific Fears 114

Linkages between Perceived Local Police Unprofessionalism, Perceived Crime-Risk, and Offense-Specific Fears 118

The Effects of Socio-Demographic Characteristics on Perceived Crime-Risk, and Offense-Specific Fears 121

A. Wording of All Model Variables 131

B. Missing Values Analysis (MVA) 135

C. Scale Construction 145

D. Investigating Home Invasion: Factor Analysis of Offense-Specific Fears 149.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 153-161) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Class of 1939 Fund.

ISBN:

1931202052

OCLC:

47756322