Self Other Judgements about Perceptions of Vulnerability to Crime among Urban Transient Females

Abstract

Past research conducted among segments of the general population concludes that people who have not been victimized by negative life events tend to perceive themselves as uniquely invulnerable compared to others in terms of future victimization risk. In contrast, people who have been victimized tend to believe that the probability of future victimizations of negative life events compared to others are more likely. Non-victims also tend not to utilize self-protective behaviors to the extent that victims do. This current paper extends this analysis to an especially vulnerable segment that represents one of the lowest socioeconomic groups in the United States of America: the urban transient female or homeless women. Two hundred of New York City's homeless women were interviewed in order to determine if their judgments of other homeless women's vulnerability to criminal victimization would differ from their judgments of their own vulnerability to criminal victimization. Responses were expected to be dependent upon their personal characteristics (e.g., crime-related determinants, victimization experiences both before and while living their precarious street existence), and the use of self-protective behaviors. Cross-tabulated results indicate consistency with and support for prior research conducted with segments of the general population.