An Assessment of How Urban Crime and Victimization Affects Life Satisfaction

Abstract

We assess the effect of the homicide rate, individual"s perception of security in their neighborhood of residence, and of the effect of their having been victimized, on life satisfaction. We find a negative effect of the homicide rate on life satisfaction for the subsample of individuals living in their current houses for at least 10 years or more, who had moved to that place at some point in the past. We also find a positive and robust effect of the perception of security in the households" neighborhood for the whole sample, and for different subsamples considered. Having been victim of an offense is also robustly negatively related to life satisfaction, in particular in the cases where the offense was robbery.

Treinta años de homicidios en Medellín, Colombia, 1979-2008

“…Estos elementos abren posibilidades de reflexión sobre las dinámicas geográficas y territoriales en las cuales se teje la violencia homicida, más allá de las condiciones de exclusión y pobreza 13 . La persistencia de jóve-nes involucrados en sociabilidades marginales, constituidos en grupos que potencian su accionar fuera de la legalidad, como un denominador común en la ciudad, en las zonas de frontera desde mediados de los setenta y que se prolonga hasta la época actual 13,39 sugiere que tanto la víctima, como el agresor, tendrían características comunes: edad, educación, género o residencia.…”

Putting a Price Tag on Security: Subjective Well-Being and Willingness-to-Pay for Crime Reduction in Europe

“…A common approach uses indicators for the regional intensity of crime, such as the number of crime incidences or the crime rate, thus matching regional crime indicators to individual level data. For instance, this strategy has been applied by Frey et al (2009) for terrorism, Hanslmaier (2013 for street crimes, Medina and Tamayo (2012) for homicides, Tella and MacCulloch (2008) for violent assaults and Cohen (2008) for violent crime. Rather than using official crime statistics, Davies and Hinks (2010) and Powdthavee (2005) calculate crime rates using information on the share of respondents per region reporting victimization in household surveys.…”

“…In addition to including these commonly used measures in our analysis, we also include another measure by drawing upon previous studies using information about victimization experiences and fear of crime from the same persons who report life satisfaction, following Medina and Tamayo (2012), Hanslmaier (2013), Davies and Hinks (2010) and Moller (2005).…”

“…Conversely, living in insecure and dangerous surroundings has far-reaching consequences, incurring different costs for the victims of crimes. Depending on its severity, criminal acts can affect victims due to uninsured financial losses, physical pain, emotional suffering, trauma or even death, thus substantially reducing their quality of life (Moller, 2005;Davies and Hinks, 2010;Medina and Tamayo, 2012;Hanslmaier, 2013;Staubli et al, 2014;Mahuteau and Zhu, 2015). Even nonvictimized individuals can suffer from crime in their environment through growing fear, anxiety and psychological distress if they perceive an increased personal risk of victimization.…”

Happiness and Victimization in Latin America

“…With respect to Colombia, Medina and Tamayo (2012) study the relationship between crime and life satisfaction using data from Medellin, a city with a long history of violence. The main findings suggest that homicide rates, perceptions of neighborhood security and victimization due to a felony (especially robbery) have a negative effect on self-reported life satisfaction.…”