The principal aim of this multilevel study was to assess the impact of collective efficacy and disorder, as neighborhood characteristics, and individual social capital on an individual’s avoidance behavior, independent of the neighborhood composition. The theoretical backdrop to the present study integrates insights from social capital theory, collective efficacy theory, and broken windows theory. The multilevel model is based on an individual-level questionnaire of inhabitants (N = 2,730) and a neighborhood-level questionnaire of key informants in neighborhoods in Ghent, Belgium (N = 142). The results suggest small but significant neighborhood effects on an individual’s avoidance behavior. Individuals with lower levels of individual social capital and who live in neighborhoods with higher levels of disorder report more avoidance behavior.
BaumF.ZierschA. M. (2003). Social capital. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 57, 320-323.
2.
BourdieuP. (1986). The forms of capital. In RichardsonJ. (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241-258). New York, NY: Greenwood.
3.
BursikR. J.GrasmickH. G. (1993). Neighborhoods and crime. New York, NY: Lexington.
4.
CarpianoR. M. (2006). Toward a neighborhood resource-based theory of social capital for health: Can Bourdieu and sociology help?Social Science & Medicine, 62, 165-175.
5.
ChatawayM.HartT. C.CoomberR.BondC. (2017). The geography of crime fear: A pilot study exploring event-based perceptions of risk using mobile technology. Applied Geography, 86, 300-307.
6.
ColemanJ. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human-capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, S95-S120.
7.
ColvinM.CullenF. T.Vander VenT. (2002). Coercion, social support, and crime: An emerging theoretical consensus. Criminology, 40, 19-42.
8.
CossmanJ. S.RaderN. E. (2011). Fear of crime and personal vulnerability: Examining self-reported health. Sociological Spectrum, 31, 141-162.
9.
CoyneJ. C.DowneyG. (1991). Social-factors and psychopathology: Stress, social support, and coping processes. Annual Review of Psychology, 42, 401-425.
10.
DarkS. J.BramD. (2007). The Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP) in physical geography. Progress in Physical Geography, 31, 471-479.
11.
FarrallS.JacksonJ.GrayE. (2009). Social order and the fear of crime in contemporary times. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
12.
FattahE. A.SaccoV. F. (1989). Crime and victimization of the elderly. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.
13.
FerraroK. F. (1995). Fear of crime: Interpreting victimization risk. Albany: State University of New York Press.
14.
FerraroK. F.LaGrangeR. (1987). The measurement of fear of crime. Sociological Inquiry, 57, 70-101.
15.
FieldJ. (2003). Social capital. London, England: Routledge.
16.
FranklinT. W.FranklinC. A.FearnN. E. (2008). A multilevel analysis of the vulnerability, disorder, and social integration models of fear of crime. Social Justice Research, 21, 204-227.
17.
FuY. (2005). Measuring personal networks with daily contacts: A single-item survey question and the contact diary. Social Networks, 27, 169-186.
18.
FurstenbergF. F.
(1972). Fear of crime and its effects on citizen behavior. Paper presented at the Symposium on Studies of Public Experience, Knowledge and Opinion of Crime and Justice, Washington, DC.
19.
GabrielU.GreveW. (2003). The psychology of fear of crime: Conceptual and methodological perspectives. British Journal of Criminology, 43, 600-614.
20.
GansterD. C.VictorB. (1988). The impact of social support on mental and physical health. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 61, 17-36.
21.
GreveW. (1998). Fear of crime among the elderly: Foresight, not fright. International Review of Victimology, 5, 277-309.
22.
HaleC. (1996). Fear of crime: A review of the literature. International Review of Victimology, 4, 79-150.
23.
HanleyN.RuppannerL. (2015). Understanding the effects of crime on women: Fear and well-being in the context of diverse relationships. Social Sciences, 4, 276-293.
24.
HardynsW. (2010). Social cohesion and crime. A multilevel study of collective efficacy, victimization and fear of crime (Doctoral thesis). Ghent University, Belgium.
25.
HardynsW. (2012). Social cohesion and fear of crime in the Flemish region: Looking back on the results and a preview of additional research. In PonsaersP. (Ed.), Social analysis of security: Financial, economic and ecological crime—Crime (in)security and (dis)trust—Public and private policing (pp. 167-202). The Hague, The Netherlands: Eleven International Publishing.
26.
HardynsW.PauwelsL. (2010). Different measures of fear of crime and survey measurement error. In CoolsM.et al. (Eds.), Safety, societal problems and citizens’ perceptions: New empirical data, theories and analyses (Vol. 3, pp. 19-39). Antwerp, Belgium: Maklu.
27.
HardynsW.VynckeV.De BoeckA.PauwelsL.WillemsS. (2016). Are collective efficacy, disorder and social support associated with one’s quality of life? Evidence from the multilevel SWING study in Belgium. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 11, 739-756.
28.
HardynsW.VynckeV.PauwelsL.WillemsS. (2015). Study protocol: SWING—Social capital and well-being in neighborhoods in Ghent. International Journal for Equity in Health, 14(1), Article 36. doi:10.1186/s12939-015-0163-1
29.
HarphamT. (2008). The measurement of community social capital through surveys. In KawachiI.SubramanianS.V.KimD. (Eds.), Social capital and health (pp. 51-62). New York, NY: Springer.
30.
HeckR. H.ThomasS. L.TabataL. N. (2010). Multilevel and longitudinal modeling with SPSS. New York, NY: Routledge.
31.
HindelangM. J.GottfredsonM. R.GarofaloJ. (1978). Victims of personal crime: An empirical foundation for a theory of personal victimization. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
32.
HoxJ. J. (2010). Multilevel analysis: Techniques and applications. New York, NY: Routledge.
33.
InnesM. (2004). Signal crimes and signal disorders: Notes on deviance as communicative action. British Journal of Sociology, 55, 335-355.
34.
JacksonJ. (2004). An analysis of a construct and debate: The fear of crime. In AlbrechtH.-J.SerassisT.KaniaH. (Eds.), Images of crime II (pp. 35-64). Freiburg, Germany: Edition Iuscrim, Max Planck Institute.
35.
JacksonJ. (2005). Validating new measures of the fear of crime. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 8, 297-315.
36.
JacksonJ. (2009). Bridging the social and the psychological in the fear of crime. In LeeM.FarrallS. (Eds.), Fear of crime: Critical voices in an age of anxiety (pp. 143-167). London, England: Routledge.
37.
KawachiI.KimD.CouttsA.SubramanianS. V. (2004). Health by association? Social capital, social theory, and the political economy of public health—Commentary: Reconciling the three accounts of social capital. International Journal of Epidemiology, 33, 682-690.
38.
KellingG. L.ColesC. M. (1996). Fixing broken windows. Restoring order and reducing crime in our communities. New York, NY: The Free Press.
39.
LinN. (1999). Building a network theory of social capital. Connections, 22(1), 28-51.
40.
LindstromM.MerloJ.OstergrenP. O. (2002). Individual and neighbourhood determinants of social participation and social capital: A multilevel analysis of the city of Malmo, Sweden. Social Science & Medicine, 54, 1779-1791.
41.
LuptonD. (1999). Dangerous places and the unpredictable strangers: Constructions of fear of crime. The Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 32(1), 1-15.
42.
MacinkoJ.StarfieldB. (2001). The utility of social capital in research on health determinants. The Milbank Quarterly, 79, 387-427.
43.
MakariosM. D.LivelsbergerT. (2013). Social support and crime. In CullenF. T.WilcoxP. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook on criminological theory (pp. 160-185). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
44.
OberwittlerD.WikströmP.-O. H. (2009). Why small is better: Advancing the study of the role of behavioral contexts in crime causation. In BruinsmaG. J. N.WeisburdD.BernascoW. (Eds.), Putting crime in its place: Units of analysis in geographic criminology (pp. 33-58). New York, NY: Springer.
45.
PauwelsL.HardynsW. (2009). Measuring community (dis)organizational processes through key informant analysis. European Journal of Criminology, 6, 401-417. doi:10.1177/1477370809337878
46.
PauwelsL.HardynsW. (2010). Does it really have to be “an urban village”? A multilevel analysis of fear of crime. In PauwelsL.HardynsW.Van de VeldeM. (Eds.), Social disorganisation, offending, fear and victimisation: Findings from Belgian studies on the urban context of crime (pp. 177-197). Den Haag, The Netherlands: Boom Juridische Uitgevers.
47.
PutnamR. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
48.
PutnamR. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6, 65-78.
49.
PutnamR.LeonardiR.NanettiR. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
ReisigM. D.CancinoJ. M. (2004). Incivilities in nonmetropolitan communities: The effects of structural constraints, social conditions, and crime. Journal of Criminal Justice, 32, 15-29.
52.
RossC. E.MirowskyJ. (2001). Neighborhood disadvantage, disorder, and health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 42, 258-276.
53.
RossC. E.MirowskyJ. (2009). Neighborhood disorder, subjective alienation, and distress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 50, 49-64.
54.
SaccoV. F. (1993). Social support and the fear of crime. Canadian Journal of Criminology, 35, 187-196.
55.
SampsonR. J. (2003). The neighborhood context of well-being. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 46(3), S53-S64.
56.
SampsonR. J. (2012). Great American city: Chicago and the enduring neighborhood effect. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
57.
SampsonR. J.RaudenbushS. W.EarlsF. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277, 918-924.
58.
ShawC. R.McKayH. (1969). Juvenile delinquency and urban areas: A study of rates of delinquency in relation to differential characteristics of local communities in American cities. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1942)
59.
SkoganW. G. (1990). Disorder and decline. New York, NY: The Free Press.
SubramanianS. V.LochnerK. A.KawachiI. (2003). Neighborhood differences in social capital: A compositional artifact or a contextual construct?Health & Place, 9, 33-44. doi:10.1016/S1353-8292(02)00028-X
62.
ThoitsP. A. (1985). Social support processes and psychological wellbeing theoretical possibilities. In SarasonG. I.SarasonB. R. (Eds.), Social support theory, research and applications (pp. 51-72). The Hague, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhof.
63.
ThoitsP. A. (1995). Stress, coping, and social support processes: Where are we? What next?Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 35, 53-79.
64.
ThoitsP. A. (2011). Mechanisms linking social ties and support to physical and mental health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 52, 145-161.
65.
ToblerW. R. (1970). A computer movie simulating urban growth in the Detroit region. Economic Geography, 46, 234-240.
66.
Van Der GaagM. P. J.SnijdersT. A. B. (2004). Proposals for the measurement of individual social capital. In FlapH.VolkerB. (Eds.), Creation and returns of social capital (pp. 199-218). London, England: Routledge.
67.
VanderveenG. (2006). Interpreting fear, crime, risk and unsafety. Den Haag, The Netherlands: Boom Juridische Uitgevers.
68.
WaverijnG.GroenewegenP. P.de KlerkM. (2017). Social capital, collective efficacy and the provision of social support services and amenities by municipalities in the Netherlands. Health and Social Care in the Community, 25, 414-423.
69.
WeisburdD. (2015). The law of crime concentrations and the criminology of place. Criminology, 53, 133-157.
70.
WeisburdD.BernascoW.BruinsmaG. J. N. (2009). Putting crime in its place: Units of analysis in geographic criminology. New York, NY: Springer.
71.
WeisburdD.BruinsmaG. J. N.BernascoW. (2009). Units of analysis in geographic criminology: Historical development, critical issues, and open questions. In BruinsmaG. J. N.WeisburdD.BernascoW. (Eds.), Putting crime in its place: Units of analysis in geographic criminology (pp. 3-31). New York, NY: Springer.
72.
WikströmP.-O. H. (2011). Does everything matter? Addressing the problem of causation and explanation in the study of crime. In McGloinJ. M.SullivanC. J.KennedyL. W. (Eds.), When crime appears: The role of emergence (pp. 53-72). London, England: Routledge.
73.
WikströmP.-O. H.DolménL. (2001). Urbanisation, neighbourhood social integration, informal social control, minor social disorder, victimisation and fear of crime. International Review of Victimology, 8, 121-140.
74.
WilsonJ. Q.KellingG. L. (1982, March). Broken windows: The police and neighborhood safety. The Atlantic, 249, 29-38.
75.
WrightJ. P.CullenF. T. (2001). Parental efficacy and delinquent behavior: Do control and support matter?Criminology, 39, 677-705.
76.
WyantB. R. (2008). Multilevel impacts of perceived incivilities and perceptions of crime risk on fear of crime. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 45, 39-64.
77.
ZhangL. N.MessnerS. F.LiuJ. H. (2007). A multilevel analysis of the risk of household burglary in the city of Tianjin, China. British Journal of Criminology, 47, 918-937.
78.
ZhangL. N.MessnerS. F.LiuJ. H.ZhuoY. A. (2009). Guanxi and fear of crime in contemporary urban China. British Journal of Criminology, 49, 472-490.
