An Investigation of the Influence of the Spatial Distribution of Neighborhood Violent Crime on Fear of Crime

Although crime rates dramatically declined during the 1990s, recent statistics indicated more than one third of the U.S. population continued to be afraid of areas within one mile of their home. Statistics such as this imply spatial dependence, but the importance of space in statistical analyses of fear of crime has remained relatively underexplored. The current study contributes to research on fear of crime by assessing the importance of crime rates in nearby neighborhood areas in addition to conventional individual- and neighborhood-level predictors of fear of criminal victimization. Results indicate that individuals who lived near neighborhoods that featured higher rates of violent crime were more likely to report being afraid of violent crime, but that the influence of violent crime rates in nearby neighborhoods was lessened after other features of their home neighborhood were controlled. In particular, the results highlight the importance of neighborhood communities as a protective factor against fear of crime.