Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 48(4)

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, November 2011: Volume 48, Issue 4

Revisiting Risk Sensitivity in the Fear of Crime
Jonathan Jackson

This article considers the psychology of risk perception in worry about crime. A survey-based study replicates a long-standing finding that perceptions of the likelihood of criminal victimization predict levels of fear of crime. But perceived control and perceived consequence also play two roles: (a) each predicts perceived likelihood and (b) each moderates the relationship between perceived likelihood and worry about crime. Public perceptions of control and consequence thus drive what Mark Warr defines as “sensitivity to risk.” When individuals perceive crime to be especially serious in its personal impact, and when individuals perceive that they have little personal control over the victimization event occurring, a lower level of perceived likelihood is needed to stimulate worry about crime.

Gender Differences in Risk Factors for Violent Victimization: An Examination of Individual-, Family-, and Community-Level Predictors
Janet L. Lauritsen and Kristin Carbone-Lopez

While gender is a well-known correlate of victimization risk, there has been a tendency to study women’s experiences of violence separately from those of men. As a result, relatively little attention has been paid to the question of whether gender moderates well-known risk factors for violent victimization. In this article, the authors use data from the Area-Identified National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to examine whether the relationships between individual, family, and neighborhood factors and victimization risk are similar in strength and direction for males and females. The findings show that most risk factors for violent victimization are similar across gender and crime type. In a few important instances, however, risk factors such as neighborhood disadvantage were found to vary some across gender. The implications of these findings for the assumptions about gender differences underlying various theoretical perspectives are discussed.

Problem Behavior in the Middle School Years: An Assessment of the Social Development Model
Christopher J. Sullivan and Paul Hirschfield

The Social Development Model (SDM) is a life course theory that integrates several extant criminological theories to specify the interactive social processes that lead to prosocial and antisocial behavior. Relatively little research has attempted to cross-validate this and other developmental theories of delinquency. The current study assesses the school and family processes that comprise SDM with a sample of Chicago public school students measured over three school years between fifth and eighth grades (n = 2,014). The data draw on student surveys tapping into multiple domains relevant to the explanation of problem behavior. Although overall model fit was marginal, the results of structural equation models largely support the SDM and its constituent paths. The implications for theoretical development and intervention are considered.

Measuring Community Risk and Protective Factors for Adolescent Problem Behaviors: Evidence from a Developing Nation
Edward R. Maguire, William Wells, and Charles M. Katz

Most published research on community risk and protective factors for adolescent problem behaviors has been carried out in developed nations. This article examines community risk and protective factors in a sample of more than 2,500 adolescents in Trinidad and Tobago, a developing Caribbean nation. The authors examine the construct and concurrent validity of five community risk factors and two community protective factors. The findings of this study suggest that existing measures of risk and protective factors have weak construct validity when applied to a sample of youth from Trinidad and Tobago. The revised model specifications this study developed fit the data better than the original models developed in the United States. However, the concurrent validity of both sets of measures is weak. Our findings suggest the need for caution when transplanting measures of risk and protective factors from developed to developing nations.