The Spatial Network Context of Victimization and Risk Exposures

• In Event: Neighborhoods and Violent Victimization

Abstract

Despite a growing body of ecological studies showing that neighborhood crime is affected by nearby disadvantage, studies of neighborhood effects on individual reports of victimization predominantly assume that home neighborhoods function independent of their surroundings. The current study explores the role of several types of potentially influential non-home areas: a) areas nearby the home-neighborhood, b) activity space neighborhoods, and c) network neighborhoods, connected through daily population flows. Survey data from Los Angeles Families and Neighborhood Study together with data from the Decennial Census, American Community Survey, Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics and other administrative records, are analyzed to measure racial and ethnic differences in neighborhood and network contexts and their association with on differential victimization reports. When the residential and non-residential neighborhoods are similarly disadvantaged, their victimization risk may be increased. Alternatively, victimization risk may be amplified through relative deprivation when the home and non-home neighborhoods are most socio-economically different. Preliminary results suggest that for some groups, surrounding disadvantage may matter more than residential neighborhood disadvantage for victimization. Living and working further from disadvantage may also decrease victimization risk, suggesting that safety depends on reducing disadvantage exposures in individuals' home neighborhoods and their spatial networks.

Author

• Corina Graif, Pennsylvania State University