RT Research Data
T1 Understanding the Fear of Street Gangs: The Importance of Community Conditions (Santa Ana, California, 1997)
A1 Lane, Jodi
A2 Petersilia, Joan
LA English
PP Erscheinungsort nicht ermittelbar
PB [Verlag nicht ermittelbar]
YR 2012
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1840049812
AB This study was designed as an exploratory study to understand fear of gang crime among residents living in an urban area plagued by gangs. During the Summer of 1997, six focus groups were conducted in Santa Ana, California -- two in lower income neighborhoods, two in middle income neighborhoods, and two in upper income neighborhoods. After the focus groups ended, participants were asked to take disposable cameras with them and take pictures of examples of neighborhood factors that prompted them to fear gangs and then mail them back to me in a postage-paid envelope. The research questions guiding this study were: How do the fear-of-crime perspectives apply to fear of gang crime specifically? When worrying about gang crime, do different people focus primarily on different problems (e.g., some diversity or some disorder), or do the same people think about all of these factors? Findings first showed that all four theoretical perspectives on fear of crime applied to the same people at once, rather than to different people (e.g., some being worried about racial and ethnic differences but others about disorder). Second, findings illustrated specifically how these residents connected the factors into one thought process leading to fear of gangs. Residents in these groups clearly believed that ethnic and cultural diversity, or in this case, recent "illegal" Latino immigrants, brought disorder, which in turn caused community decline and brought gangs. This thought process led to personal fear of gang-related victimization. Their beliefs about these causal connections were primarily influenced by their knowledge and observations that gangs in the area were Latino; by direct observation of area diversity disorder, and decline; and by experience living in their changing neighborhoods over time. In addition, beliefs were fueled by indirect victimization, or knowledge gained primarily through acquaintances such as neighbors and community policing officers.
K1 bilingual education
K1 Communities
K1 Crime
K1 gang violence
K1 Gangs
K1 Immigration
K1 Language
K1 Neighborhood change
K1 neighborhood characteristics
K1 Neighborhoods
K1 Residential segregation
K1 residents
K1 urban areas
K1 Urban Crime
K1 urban decline
K1 urban poverty
K1 urban problems
K1 Forschungsdaten
DO 10.3886/ICPSR32161.v1