Community Structural Change and Fear of Crime

Abstract

This paper examines how unexpected neighborhood changes influence fear of crime. It focuses on the roles of population composition, signs of incivility, and unsupervised peer teen groups. Survey, physical assessment, and census data for 1,622 residents in 66 Baltimore city neighborhoods form the basis of contextual models of daytime and nighttime fear levels. Fear was high in neighborhoods experiencing unexpected increases in minority and youth populations. Unexpected ecological change does not by itself set in motion a broad array of consequences undermining neighborhood viability. Rather, ecological change influences racial composition; other structural dynamics, independent of these ecological changes, subsequently determine the specific consequences of neighborhood racial composition.