The Social Ecology of Violent Victimization: Individual and Contextual Effects in the NCVS

Multi-level research has shown that individual and community factors are important predictors of the risk for violent victimization. However, previous analyses have drawn different conclusions about the role of any given factor. These differences likely are related to variations in how violence is m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of quantitative criminology 2001-03, Vol.17 (1), p.3-32
Main Author: Lauritsen, Janet L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Communities
Crime victims
Criminal justice
Criminology
Ecology
Multilevel models
National crime surveys
Neighborhoods
Polls & surveys
Retirement communities
Risk
Risk assessment
Sexual violence
Social Environment
Social research
Socioeconomic factors
United States of America
Urban violence
Victimization
Victims of crime
Violence
Violent crimes
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Summary:Multi-level research has shown that individual and community factors are important predictors of the risk for violent victimization. However, previous analyses have drawn different conclusions about the role of any given factor. These differences likely are related to variations in how violence is measured and to the fact that the data are drawn from different locales. The research presented here uses the 1995 National Crime Victimization Survey and tract-level census data to examine (1) how the risk of violence is distributed across persons and places in the United States and (2) whether empirical findings are sensitive to the operationalization of violence. Results show that some individual-level predictors (e.g., gender and race) are sensitive to the operationalization of violence, whereas others (e.g., age and marital status) are not. In addition, the impact of community characteristics on violence depends on central-city residence. In central cities, persons most at risk are in disadvantaged tracts, with lower proportions of immigrants. Outside central cities, the proportion of immigrants in an area increases risk, while community disadvantage has no independent influence. The importance of an empirical foundation for the development of theories of risk is discussed.
ISSN:0748-4518
1573-7799
DOI:10.1023/A:1007574114380