Neighborhood Structure and Fear of Crime in Urban China: Disorder As a Neighborhood Process

Abstract

SummaryFear of crime has always been a major topic in the popular media and for public policy. Consequences of fear of crime are salient for citizens' and the community's quality of life. Since the late 1970s, there has been a much scholarly attention paid to the role of disorder in producing fear of crime and further producing adverse community consequences. Particularly influential works were Wilson and Kelling's paper (1982) and Skogan's work (1990); these works greatly influenced public policy in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Greene and Taylor 1988; Ferraro 1994). The salient feature of this research is its emphasis on the role of community context, analyzing how disorder generates fear of crime and leads to community decline at the street block and neighborhood level. The impact of fear of crime extends beyond the victims of the crimes, and indicates the salience of the social aspect of fear of crime. Therefore, neighborhood effects are highly relevant to the understanding of fear of crime. Scholars have recognized that individuals' fear is better understood within a neighborhood or community context. The purpose of the present study is to build upon prior work to address critical questions of neighborhood effects on fear of crime under context of contemporary urban China. Using multilevel analyses of data from Tianjing, China, this paper found that neighborhood context variables have effect on fear of crime independent of individual characteristics.

Media Consumption and Fear of Crime in a Large Chinese City

“…Some studies show that individuals with a lower social status are more fearful of crime compared to their better‐off counterparts (McKee and Milner, ; Pantazis, ), possibly due to their greater risks of victimization. While there is evidence indicating that better educated Chinese are more fearful of crime than the less educated (Liu, ; Liu et al., ), income is found not predictive of fear (Liu, ). The effect of self‐reported social class has not been empirically assessed in the Chinese fear of crime literature.…”

“…First, the vulnerability model posits that real or perceived personal susceptibility to crime, as measured by a number of demographic indictors, promotes fear (Hale, ). For example, women tend to be more fearful than men because women feel less physically capable of protecting themselves against offenders (Liu, ; Liu et al., ). In research stemming largely from the United States, age tends to be positively related to fear of crime with the elderly being the least physically capable and most fearful (McGarrell, Giacomazzi, and Thurman, ).…”

“…In research stemming largely from the United States, age tends to be positively related to fear of crime with the elderly being the least physically capable and most fearful (McGarrell, Giacomazzi, and Thurman, ). Evidence from China, however, suggests that young people have greater fear of crime in urban China compared to their older counterparts (Liu, ; Liu et al., ). Social class is less studied compared to gender and age.…”

“…Some studies report that victimization is positively related to fear (Skogan and Maxfield, ; Yun, Kercher, and Swindell, ), while others indicate that groups with the lowest victimization rates (e.g., elderly women) harbor the greatest fear (Lee and Ulmer, ; Warr, ). Neither personal violent victimization nor property victimization are found to be significant correlates of Chinese fear of crime, after controlling for perceived neighborhood disorder (Liu, ). Meanwhile, the model predicts that people's experience with and perception of the police may also affect their fear of crime.…”

“…Empirical research on perceptions of crime among Chinese people has developed encouragingly during the past decade. Several studies have examined public perception of crime and/or disorder conditions (Jiang et al., ; Zhang et al., ), the effect of individual sociodemographics and neighborhood characteristics on fear of crime (Liu, ; Zhang et al., ; Liu et al., ; Liu et al., ), and the effect of fear of crime on bystander intervention (Zhong, ). Additional research includes a comparison between Chinese and American college students’ views on crime (Lambert and Jiang, ).…”