Category: Crime

1. What was the research question?
RQ1: What is the relationship between the fear of crime in the neighborhood and at home?
RQ2: Are the distinct determinants of neighborhood-related crime-specific fear equally relevant to the proximal home-related fear of crime?

2. What was the hypothesis (es)?
Luo et al. (2016) hypothesized that:
H1: Individuals’ demographic variables—educational attainment, age, and gender—influence their perception of crime, neighborhood’s collective efficacy, police rating,and neighborhood-and home-related fear of crime.
H2: Individual’s prior victimization experience affects their perception of crime, neighborhood’s collective efficacy, police rating, and neighborhood-and home-related fear of crime.
H3: The neighborhood’s collective efficacy directly and negatively affects the residents’ neighborhood-and home-related fear of crime.
H4: Residents’ police rating directly influences their neighborhood-and home-related fear of crime.
H5: Individuals’ perception of crime directly affects their neighborhood-and home-related fear of crime via its influences on collective efficacy and police rating.
H6: The incidence of reported crime in the neighborhood directly influences collective efficacy, perceptions of crime, police rating, and the neighborhood-and home-related crime-specific fear.
H7: The neighborhood-related fear of crime increases the home-related crime-specific fear.

3. What were the dependent variables (DV’s)?
Luo et al. (2016) incorporated two dependent variables into their model: the distal crime-specific fear in the neighborhood and the proximal fear of crime within one’s household.

4. What were the independent variables (IV’s)?
Luo et al. (2016) employed several independent variablesto test the salience of their three models: demographic/victimization, crime/disorder, and neighborhood support models. Concerning the demographic and victimization model, the researchers utilized three independent variables, namely age, educational attainment, and gender. The researchers then tested the crime/disorder model using reported violent crime and perception of crime. Finally, the authors used collective efficacy and residents’ police rating to test the neighborhood support model.

5. Formulate a research question that builds on and extends Luo et al’s (2016) work OR Larsson’s work (2009).
The study by Luo et al. (2016) highlights the relationship between reported incidents and neighborhood-and home-related fear of crime. However, the research is limited to violent incidents in police records. With this gap in mind, it might be crucial to expand the association to include crimes reported via mass media. For example, Intravia et al. (2017) infer that social media consumption is a risk factor for fear of crime among adults. These findings raise the research question, ‘What is the relationship between mass media coverage of violence and neighborhood-and home-related fear of crime?’