The impact of crime rate, experience of crime, and fear of crime on residents’ participation in association: studying 25 districts in the City of Seoul, South Korea

Abstract

While the majority of studies on community crime have focused on socio-economic characteristics that lead to high or low rates of crime, the impact of crime on community residents’ social ties has received less attention. This study examines the impact of district-level crime rate, experience of crime, and fear of crime on individual community residents’ participation in association—which has been widely seen as an indicator of social capital—in the city of Seoul, South Korea. Moreover, as recent social capital studies look deeper into the different types of neighborhood crime connected to different types of associations, this study separately examines the impact of total crime, violent crime, and property crime on the respondents’ social, civic engagement, reward-based, and online associations. We find that district-level crime rates negatively correlated with all types of associations, but the difference between violent crime and property crime was minimal. Additionally, individual-level experience of crime significantly decreased residents’ participation in social and online associations. However, fear of crime did not show a significant effect on any type of association.