Risks of Violence in Major Daily Activities: United States, 2003-2005

Abstract

The routine activity approach, lifestyle perspective, and environmental criminology, all argue the risk of violence is not distributed evenly across time and space. This dissertation quantifies the risk of violence for different activities and types of place. Using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey and American Time Use Survey, activity-and place-specific rates of violence are calculated to determine (a) which activity or type of place is the most dangerous, (b) the relative risk of activities and types of place, and (c) how activity-and place-specific risks vary between demographic subgroups. Time-based rates are used to account for the reality that Americans do not spend equal amounts of time in activities and types of place. The activity-specific analysis showed sleeping was the safest activity in America; going to and from school was the most dangerous. The risk of violence during the school commute is 285 times higher than it is while sleeping. The place-specific analysis indicated home was the safest place to be while the street was the most dangerous; the risk of violence on the street was 51 times higher than it was at home. When rates of violence were calculated for demographic subgroups of the American population, the race and sex of individuals were found to have little effect on the risk of violence. Age was the only demographic variable included in the analysis that had substantial impact on the risk of victimization in different activities and types of place. These findings indicate crime prevention strategies cannot neglect the role lifestyles play in an individual's risk of victimization. Because the risk of violence varies greatly between activities and types of place it is inappropriate to label demographic subgroups as high risk based on the population size alone. This research indicates it is what people do, not who they are, that determines their risk of violence. Additionally, this research shows risk assessments that do not account for the transient nature of Americans in time and space can produce misleading information as to which activities and types of place are the most dangerous.iii Table of ContentsAbstract ii Table of Contents iii List of Tables vii List of Figures xiChapter This dissertation provides estimates for the risk of violence in the United States disaggregated by the types of places people visit and the activities they participate in.These risks are further disaggregated by demographic categories to provide the most detailed violence risk estimates available to date.Numerous pieces of criminological research have shown that crime is concentrated spatially; it is not randomly or evenly distributed on the macro-or micro-level 1 (Guerry, 1833; Quételet, 1842;Sherman et al., 1989;Brantingham and Brantingham, 1993;Block and Block, 1995;Clarke and Eck, 1995;Nelson et al., 2001;Weisburd et al., 2004;1 At the micro-level of analysis, the term "hot spot" has become popular amongst researchers and practitioners to describe the geographical concentration o...

Daily crime flows within a city

“…The results were dramatic, but the categories were rather crude given the time use data available at the time. More recently, The American Time Use Survey made it possible to calculate national violent victimization rates with time denominators with more disaggregation (Lemieux 2010;Lemieux and Felson 2012). However, none of these publications were able to localize the impact of shifting population on crime concentration processes.…”

Commuting time, public exposure and victimization: Evidence from Brazilian metropolitan regions

“…Although the empirical evidence confirms the influence of public exposure associated with a longer and more frequent commute on the chance of being a victim of urban violence (Lemieux, ; Lemieux & Felson, ), the question is much less investigated for developing countries and still unexplored for Brazilian metropolitan regions. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the existence of a causal relationship between commute time and the probability of being a victim of urban violence for individuals living in Brazilian metropolitan regions, that is, to determine if a longer commute time implies a higher chance of becoming a victim of urban violence for the inhabitants in these urban centres.…”

“…Wang and Minor (2002), using US census information, found an inverse relation between accessibility to jobs and violent crime in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. Lemieux (2011) andLemieux andFelson (2012), using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey and American Time Survey, built timeadjusted measures of exposure to violent attacks that demonstrated that greater risk occurs during travel between activities, specifically, while commuting to work and school.…”

“…Although the empirical evidence confirms the influence of public exposure associated with a longer and more frequent commute on the chance of being a victim of urban violence (Lemieux, 2011;Lemieux & Felson, 2012), the question is much less investigated for developing countries and still unexplored for Brazilian metropolitan regions.…”