Neighborhood Contextual Effects on Victim Reporting and Help-Seeking Behaviors

• In Event: Variation in Racialized Victimization and Post-Victimization Reporting Processes Among Victims of Bias-Motivated and Other Crimes

Abstract

Very few studies have explored how neighborhood conditions impact victims’ decisions to report to the police, and virtually no studies examine how these conditions impact non-police help-seeking behaviors beyond identifying common structural barriers. Given that police reporting is only one of many possible responses to victimization, we must identify how the interrelated decisions whether to request police and non-police assistance are shaped by neighborhood context. The current study integrates data from the Longitudinal Hate Crime Victimization Survey (LHCVS) and American Community Survey (ACS) to investigate how neighborhood disadvantage and resource availability constrain various victim help-seeking behaviors, as well as how these relationships operate through individual perceptions of police legitimacy. We anticipate that victims in the most and least disadvantaged communities will be more likely to seek help from personal networks or no help at all, rather than from the police or victim service providers. We further expect that perceptions of police legitimacy largely mediate this relationship in disadvantaged neighborhoods only. The findings are expected to yield important policy implications for improving police and victim service provisions in marginalized communities. More generally, this research serves to expand our understanding of the consequences of social stratification on individual attitudes and behaviors.

Authors

• Sarah Renee Wouters, Florida State University

• Marin Wenger, Florida State University

• Brendan Lantz, Florida State University

• Sylwia Janina Piatkowska, Florida State University