What They Don't Know Says a Lot: Multilevel Analysis of Residents' Knowledge of Neighborhood Crime in Contemporary China

• In Event: Fear of Crime: International Perspectives

Abstract

Survey researchers have long debated the issue of whether to provide a "don’t know" (DK) option in survey instruments and how to handle DK responses in data analysis if the option has been provided. The debates center around whether the incorporation of the DK option is necessary to avoid forced answers to nonexistent attitudes/opinions, whether this option simply encourages respondents to avoid contemplating an item, and whether to treat DK responses as missing data or as revealing something of substantive interest (e.g., lack of knowledge). We conducted a multistage survey of residents’ perceptions of crime in their neighborhoods in Chongqing, China and included the DK option. We found surprisingly high percentages of DK responses for all of these questions, ranging from 42% to 60%. Such high percentages of DK responses are not found for other items such as household victimization, neighborhood social cohesion, and neighborhood social control, suggesting that the responses do not reflect a general unwillingness to respond. We examine the effects of individual-level and neighborhood-level characteristics on the propensity to give the DK response as a means of gaining a better understanding of who does and does not have knowledge of neighborhood crime.

Authors

• Yinzhi Shen, State University of New York at Albany

• Steven Messner, University at Albany, SUNY

• Jianhong Liu, University of Macau

• Robert Sampson, Harvard University