Pamela Wilcox

BUSY PLACES AND BROKEN WINDOWS? Toward Defining the Role of Physical Structure and Process in Community Crime Models

Borrowing from the systemic model of social disorganization theory as well as from theories of human ecology and urban geography, we examine the effects of land use on community rates of violence and burglary. We posit that community crime is differentially affected by distinct nonresidential physical spaces in a neighborhood—distinct in terms of whether they are adult-centered, “business-oriented” public spaces versus spaces that are public yet still “resident centered,” especially toward community youth (e.g., educational and recreational spaces). We examine potential main, mediating, and moderating effects of neighborhood social structure, resident-centered versus business-oriented public land use, and neighborhood-level processes, including neighboring and physical incivility, using data from 100 Seattle census tracts. Results suggest that the effects of schools on community violence are largely direct, while the effect of business places on violent crime is mediated substantially, but not completely, by physical disorder. In contrast, the effect of playgrounds on violence is moderated by residential instability. Regarding burglary, presence of schools is nonsignificant. Presence of businesses increases burglary, though the effect is partially mediated again by physical disorder. The effect of businesses is also moderated by residential (in)stability. Presence of playgrounds increases burglary risk regardless of neighborhood social-structural characteristics.

Gendered Opportunity? School-Based Adolescent Victimization

Researchers have shown that criminal opportunity significantly predicts school-based adolescent victimization. However, little is known about the extent to which opportunity for school-based victimization might be gendered. In this study, the authors drew from criminal opportunity and feminist research and extended the principle of homogamy to explore how gender interacts with opportunity and school-based victimization. Data collected from 2001 to 2004 from 10,522 students in 111 middle and high schools throughout Kentucky were used to examine whether indicators of criminal opportunity placed students, particularly girls, at heightened risk for school-based theft and physical assault victimization. The results of gender-specific hierarchical logistic regression models indicated that measures of criminal opportunity were significantly related to theft and assault for both sexes. Equality-of-coefficient tests supported gendered effects for some opportunity indicators, with differences indicating that the effects of risk and protective factors for victimization were heightened for girls.

Student Weapon Possession and the “Fear and Victimization Hypothesis”: Unraveling the Temporal Order

Using longitudinal data from nearly 4,000 students across 113 public schools in Kentucky, we attempt to unravel the direction of the relationships between student weapon carrying and various objective and subjective school‐crime experiences, including victimization, perceived risk of school victimization, and fear of school victimization. Overall, we found little support for the idea that fear and victimization increase weapon carrying, controlling for other theoretically important predictors, including delinquent offending. While 7th‐grade victimization was modestly associated with increased non‐gun weapon carrying in 8th grade, high perceptions of individual victimization risk in 7th grade decreased both subsequent gun and non‐gun weapon carrying. Fear of criminal victimization in 7th grade did not predict either type of subsequent (8th‐grade) weapon carrying. Though fear, risk, and victimization were inconsistent predictors of gun and non‐gun weapon carrying, we found strong and consistent support for the effects of weapon carrying on subsequent fear, risk, victimization, and offending. However, contrary to the implications of fear and victimization hypotheses, both gun carrying and non‐gun weapon carrying in the 8th grade increased fear of school crime, perceived risk, and actual victimization in the 9th grade. Implications of these findings for the applicability of a “weapons” or “triggering” effect are discussed.

The Built Environment and Community Crime Risk Interpretation

In this article, the authors examine whether subjective perceptions of community safety are informed by the built environment. They posit that the built environment serves as a heuristic device, providing cues about likely levels of neighborhood crime, independent of the effects of neighborhood crime itself. Using data on 4,456individuals nested within 100 census tracts, the authors estimate hierarchical logistic models of perceived community crime risk. They focus on the role of the neighborhood built environment in the form of aggregated perceptions of nonresidential land use, while controlling for individual-level criminal opportunity, community-level social structural antecedents, and community-level objective crime. The findings indicate that the neighborhood-level presence of businesses and parks and playgrounds increases individual perceptions of community danger, but these effects disappear once neighborhood crime rates are controlled. The presence of schools has no effect on subjective interpretations of community crime, regardless of whether actual area crime is considered.

A Multidimensional Examination of Campus Safety Victimization, Perceptions of Danger, Worry About Crime, and Precautionary Behavior Among College Women in the Post-Clery Era

Using data from a spring 2004 telephone survey of 1,010 female undergraduate and graduate students at one southeastern state university, the authors examine the objective and subjective experiences with sexual assault or coercion, physical assault, and stalking among college women, paying particular attention to whether actual victimization experiences while in college coincide with cognitive assessments of campus risk, emotionally based worry about crime, and fear-related precautionary behavior. Furthermore, the authors explore whether these interrelationships might be perpetrator specific, focusing on differences in risk perception, worry, or precautionary behavior across acquaintance versus stranger-perpetrated victimization experiences. Results suggest that there is a loose coupling between actual victimization and subjective crime experiences. Implications for how colleges and universities publicly report crime and victimization, as mandated by the Clery Act, are discussed in light of these findings.

The Effects of School Crime Prevention on Students’ Violent Victimization, Risk Perception, and Fear of Crime: A Multilevel Opportunity Perspective

This study examined the effects of school‐based crime prevention strategies aimed at reducing criminal opportunity. Results are mixed as to the effectiveness of such efforts in reducing violent victimization among students. Further, few studies have examined the effects net of student‐level risk factors. Finally, it is unclear as to whether such measures agitate or placate students’ risk perception and fear. Guided by a multilevel opportunity perspective, this study used self‐report data from 2,644 seventh‐grade students nested within 58 schools to test whether such efforts reduce students’ victimization, risk perception, and fear of violence at school. Hierarchical logistic models were estimated to control for individual‐level opportunity for victimization. Net of compositional differences, the prevention practices did not significantly reduce the likelihood of experiencing violent victimization or perceptions of risk, and only one measure, metal detectors, significantly reduced fear. Implications for school crime prevention are discussed in light of the findings.

A multilevel analysis of school-based weapon possession

In this study we present and estimate a multilevel model of weapon possession by students. Our approach extends existing research through an emphasis on the simultaneous effects of individual-level factors including fear, victimization, criminal lifestyle, pro-gun socialization, and social engagement, as well as school-level contextual factors including various indicators of school structure, school capital, and school deficits. We estimate multilevel main effects using hierarchical logistic regression methods and data from more than 6,000 students in 21 schools in Louisville, Kentucky. Results indicate that the likelihood of carrying a weapon to school varies not only across individuals but across schools. School-level structural characteristics—especially SES—were significant in accounting for some of this cross-school variation. Further, the effects of SES on weapon carrying were mediated by school capital and school deficits.

Opportunity theory and adolescent school-based victimization

While school-based adolescent victimization has received a great deal of public attention, there exist relatively few theoretically driven studies aimed at explaining this phenomenon. We address this paucity by providing a test of a criminal-opportunity model of school-based victimization using data on over 3,000 students from 40 different Kentucky middle and high schools. The effects of opportunity-related concepts are estimated for both violent and property victimization, and comparisons are made for each victimization type across middle- and high-school student subsamples. Findings suggest that criminal opportunity theory is relevant to the understanding of school-based victimization. In particular, indicators of exposure to crime and target antagonism appear to be robust predictors. Further, there appears to be substantial generalizability in the effects of opportunity-related variables across violent versus property victimization as well as across middle-school versus high-school contexts.

Disentangling the effects of correctional education: Are current policies misguided? An event history analysis

Correctional policies, such as the elimination of Pell Grants to prisoners, often limit inmate educational opportunities. Thus, examination of the possible negative consequences of such actions seems important. Though characterized by some inconsistency, previous research has suggested that post-secondary education within prison has the beneficial effect of reducing recidivism. What is missing is an explicit comparison of the effects of different types of correctional education programs, with a specific focus on discerning the relative effects of college versus non-college education. The present study addresses this issue through analysis of 972 Ohio inmates paroled or released from prison between 1989 and 1992. Our results suggest that college has a substantially stronger negative impact upon recidivism hazard rates than do other forms of correctional education (e.g. high school, GED, vocational education) and imply that, perhaps, the current policy regarding post-secondary correctional education programs is misguided.

Fear of Acquaintance Versus Stranger Rape as a "Master Status": Towards Refinement of the "Shadow of Sexual Assault"

Using a sample of 1010 women from a southeastern state university, we explore whether associations between fear of sexual assault and other crime-specific fears vary based on presumed victim-offender relationship. More specifically, we assess the extent to which fear of stranger- and acquaintance-perpetrated sexual assaults differ in the extent to which they are correlated with fear of other crime victimizations. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that both fear of stranger-perpetrated sexual assault and fear of acquaintance-perpetrated sexual assault were positively associated with nearly all other crime-specific fears under examination. However, associations were particularly strong between fear of sexual assault by a stranger and fear of other stranger-perpetrated crimes. Findings have significant implications for how academic institutions should comprehensively address direct and indirect negative influences of violence against college women.