Community Trust and Neighborhood Disadvantage

• In Event: Roundtable: Empirical Tests of Community-Level Theories of Crime

Abstract

In the neighborhood context, trust is both affected by community members as well as affects community members and the collective socio-ecological system. Research has shown mistrust is amplified for people living in low-wealth, minority communities, where personal disadvantage and neighborhood disadvantage – a lack of resources and opportunities, heightened levels of crime and perceived threats to personal safety, and social disorder – contribute to a sense of personal powerlessness and vulnerability. Social disorder is the opposite of social control, where people respect each other and their respective property, where streets are free from litter and graffiti, where the potential for harm and threats to personal safety are perceived as minimal. Social disorder magnifies perceptions of powerlessness, further diminishing trust and generating mistrust. People living in disadvantage – minorities, those in poverty, lacking education and in environments that limit access to positive health outcomes and opportunity – are more likely to be mistrusting, and less likely to have the social and economic supports that are found to generate trust. High levels of trust has been found to serve as a protective factor for health and life expectancy. In this roundtable, the author will discuss the associations between neighborhood disadvantage, trust and mistrust.

Author

• Mary Ellen Brown, Arizona State University