Local Area Crime Research Articles

Local area crime and alcohol consumption: longitudinal evidence from Australia

BackgroundAlcohol misuse is a major public health issue. Understanding factors that contribute to alcohol misuse or risky drinking behaviour is important for policy. This study examined if crime rates in...

Individual, social and area level factors associated with older people's walking: Analysis of an UK household panel study (Understanding Society)

BackgroundAmong older people, walking is a popular and prevalent activity. Walking is key to increasing physical activity levels and resulting physical and mental health. In the context of rapidly ageing populations, it is important to better understand what factors are associated with walking among older people, based on the socioecological model of health. MethodsWe used data from Understanding Society (n:6450), a national panel survey of UK adults aged 65 years and over living in Great Britain. Slope Indices of Inequality (SII) were calculated for weekly walking hours for older people according to individual, social and area characteristics. These include health, loneliness and social isolation, previous walking and sporting activity, residential self-selection, contact with neighbours, number of close friends and social activity. Spatial area-level data described local area crime, walkability, and proximity to retail, greenspace, and public transport amenities. ResultsMultivariable models indicated that poor health, particularly requiring help with walking, was the strongest predictor of weekly walking hours (SII (95% CI) comparing those needing help vs. no help: −3.58 (−4.30, −2.87)). However, both prior sporting activity (most vs. least active: 2.30 (1.75, 2.88)) and walking for pleasure (yes vs. no: 1.92 (1.32, 2.53)) were strongly associated with increased walking several years later. Similarly having close friends (most vs. fewest, 1.18 (0.72, 1.77)) and local retail destinations (any vs. none: 0.93 (0.00, 1.86)) were associated with more weekly walking. ConclusionsPast engagement in physical activity and walking for pleasure are strong predictors of walking behaviour in older people, underscoring the importance of implementing and sustaining walking interventions across the lifespan to ensure continued engagement in later years and the associated health benefits. However, poor health significantly impedes walking in this demographic, emphasising the need for interventions that offer both physical assistance and social support to promote this activity.

Crime, community social capital and entrepreneurship: Evidence from Australian communities

Crime is an anti-social blight on communities that increases the cost of doing business, including for entrepreneurs. Drawing on Australian longitudinal data, this study examines the links between crime rates and the propensity for entrepreneurship within communities. We do so by matching propensity for entrepreneurship with types of crime found at the community level where crime occurs. We find that higher total crime rates, crimes against the person and property crime, significantly lower the propensity for entrepreneurship in communities. We also show that the core facets of community social capital – trust, membership in voluntary organizations and support and cooperation – mediate this relationship. Executive summaryWe comprehensively examine whether higher community crime rates – crime on people and crime on property – cause lower rates of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship research extensively examines how gaining social capital, defined as the social resources one gains within one's community, promotes entrepreneurship. This study considers whether a pervasive community dynamic in crime impedes entrepreneurship. Specifically, we show that the two main kinds of crime – people and property – inhibit entrepreneurship.We show the facets of community social capital that mediate the relationship between crime and entrepreneurship. We inform the role of community-based social capital in promoting entrepreneurship (Kwon et al., 2013) by considering how higher crime lowers social capital and in turn entrepreneurship. We show that core facets of relational social capital – trust, voluntary membership in community bodies, support, and cooperation – mediate the relationship between crime and entrepreneurship. Likewise, communities with more robust reserves of social capital are better able to withstand crime and promote entrepreneurship.Examining the link between crime and entrepreneurship allows us to contribute to the literature on entrepreneurship and social capital. We discuss the various ways in which crime diminishes social capital to shape entrepreneurship. In our framework that is predicated on theory on community social capital, crime creates distrust because it causes citizens to be wearier and more suspicious of each other, impeding sharing of ideas and knowledge for ventures. Crime impedes the efficacy and membership of community-based organizations that allow entrepreneurs to network. Crime reduces the support available for founders to start and sustain businesses in focal communities, as individuals seek opportunities and resources outside their communities. Crime diminishes the extent to which people take pride in and identify with their communities, as evidenced by voluntary membership in community organizations. Crime reduces collaboration because it leads to self-protective behaviors, including flight from high-crime communities, that hinder norms of reciprocity. Crime reduces cooperation as criminals are more likely to resort to coercion, as enforced by monitoring and violence, to solve business problems.Findings rely on a comprehensive database of crime rates across Australian postcodes. Crime is typically a localized phenomenon – it affects business outcomes in local communities. We obtain community-level crime rates from each Australian state and territory police force or relevant government agencies and match these data with entrepreneurship rates by postcode. Our primary identification strategy follows Dustmann and Fasani (2016), who estimate the effect of local area crime on mental health in the United Kingdom (UK). This identification strategy removes the effects of residential sorting and correlates crime with time-varying unobserved entrepreneurship determinants if there is no endogenous migration from local crime. The main findings are robust to instrumenting for local area crime to which movers are exposed and for historical abortion rates in the state or territory where the individual lives, as well as a number of other approaches to obtaining causal inference.The article holds considerable practical relevance for policymakers seeking to promote community entrepreneurship. Our study is highly relevant to community leaders and policymakers working to boost local entrepreneurship. Findings strongly suggest that efforts to reduce crime are a primary mechanism to protect social capital within communities and, therefore, entrepreneurship. Policy initiatives dedicated to creating and expanding social ventures would a) boost entrepreneurship and social capital and b) mitigate the detrimental effects of crime on entrepreneurship (Wry and York, 2017).

Local area crime and energy poverty

Energy poverty is a distinct form of poverty that the International Energy Agency estimates could affect as many as one billion people globally. In high-income countries, it is primarily an affordability issue resulting from some combination of having low-income, high expenditure on energy and living in energy inefficient buildings. Rates of energy poverty are typically higher in low-income neighborhoods, in which local area crime rates are also higher. Here, we match longitudinal data at the household level with local area crime rates to estimate the causal effect of local area crime on the probability of being in energy poverty. Our baseline estimates suggest that a standard deviation increase in crime rate causes a 4–5% increase in the likelihood of being in energy poverty. Our instrumental variable estimates are considerably higher, suggesting these are lower bound estimates. We find that social capital, perceived safety and physical activity are channels through which crime influences energy poverty and that being internal on Locus of Control dampens the effect of crime on energy poverty.

Local crime and fertility

We present the first estimates of the impact of local area crime on fertility. We first develop a simple theoretical model to examine the relationship between crime and fertility. We explore labor income, as a proxy for labor market conditions, house prices and school quality as potential channels. The model predicts that individuals change their demand for children through the income and substitution effects in response to changes in crime rates. We test the theoretical predictions of the model using longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey that matches each household to crime statistics, school quality and house prices at the Local Government Area (LGA) level. We find that a one standard deviation increase in the LGA crime rate causes a 7.8 per cent increase in fertility and that house prices and school quality are channels through which crime influences fertility. We find that the mediating effect of school quality is stronger than that of house prices, and that the interaction between school quality and house prices reinforces the role of house prices as a mediator. Further, the positive effect of crime on fertility rates is stronger for homeowners compared to non-homeowners and weaker for those homeowners with a mortgage, relative to those who own their home outright.

Locus of control and the mental health effects of local area crime

RationaleExposure to local crime can constitute profound and continuing trauma with significant mental health implications. This is true for both victims and others within society who have not been directly victimised. Yet, for most policymakers, understanding what can be done to help victims to improve their level of mental wellbeing, has proved to be extremely challenging. ObjectiveOur objective is to explore the role of locus of control (LoC), an important personality trait, in helping victims to develop resilience against crime. Specifically, we seek to examine the impact of local area crime rates on the mental health of residents and whether a person's LoC can help build resilience against the negative mental health effects from local area crime. MethodsUsing 19 waves of longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, covering 15,245 adults between the ages of 21 and 59 years, we employ an empirical strategy that addresses the issue of sorting and endogenous crime-related moving behaviour. ResultsWe find that local area crime lowers mental health for residents, and that those who are more internal on LoC are more resilient to the adverse effects of local crime on mental health. Our results also show that social capital, physical activity, perceived safety and neighbourhood satisfaction are mechanisms through which LoC moderates the effect of local crime on mental health. ConclusionOur findings have important implications for developing policies that seek to address the negative effects of crime. We propose policies that promote building safer communities and fostering social inclusion as ways to reduce the effect of crime on mental health.

Big data and human biosensors – birthweight as a biomonitor for air pollution levels. A population based study using routine data.

IntroductionIn the natural sciences biomonitors, (organisms, such as pine needles, shells, lichen, that can provide quantitative information on the quality of their past and present environments) have been developed for environmental measurement. In recent year’s physiologists have started to explore if human tissue could also be used.
 Objectives and ApproachThe costs of collecting and processing human tissues for biomonitoring, may be too prohibitive for its use in wide scale monitoring. In contrast if biomonitors could be identified within a routine data collection process that were part of standard medical recording a low cost, widely available large sample would be available to scientists. Pregnancy is known to be effected by air pollution, therefore we explore whether birthweight, recorded in maternity records, could be a biomonitor for air pollution.
 ResultsWe use maternity records (~1 million births) in Scotland between 2000 and 2015. We modelled, at the individual mother level birthweight, controlling mother’s age, estimated household income, local area crime rates and area level of multiple deprivation. We then aggregate and calculate the averaged of the residuals for this model for all mothers within an intermediate datazones (small areas of around 4000 residents). These mean deviations were then compared with pollution modelled figures produced by AEA for the Scottish government averaged over the same spatial units and time period as the maternity data. "We find a relatively strong correlations (between -0.37 and -0.39) between our ‘biomonitor estimates’ of air pollution derived from the maternity records and the entirely separated modelled air pollution data."
 Conclusion/ImplicationsAs far as we know this is the first study to demonstrate that it may be possible to use routine health data to derive ‘biomonitors’ information. Importantly if this method proves to be reliable it will be a relatively cheap method for collecting information that is actually personally monitoring.

The Effect of Local Area Crime on Mental Health

This study analyses the effect of local crime rates on residents' mental health. Using longitudinal information on individuals' mental well-being, we address the problem of sorting and endogenous moving behaviour. We find that crime causes considerable mental distress for residents, primarily driven by property crime. Effects are stronger for females, and mainly related to depression and anxiety. The distress caused by one SD increase in local crime is 2–4 times larger than that caused by a 1 SD decrease in local employment, and about one-seventh of the short-term impact of the 7 July 2005 London Bombings.

Commuters using public transit in New York City: Using area-level data to identify neighbourhoods with vulnerable riders

This study uses routine activity theory and research on victimization and fear of crime to contextualize the importance of examining characteristics related to crime-target vulnerability among public transit commuters. A principal component analysis was conducted using 5-year data from the American Community Survey 2010. New York City (NYC) Police Department Compstat data for 2010 were used to provide a backcloth for understanding the types of crime problems vulnerable transit commuters may confront in their local areas. Findings show that a majority (55.3 per cent ) of the NYC commuters used public transit to travel to work, with more females, youths, ethnic minorities and non-naturalized immigrants commuting by public transit. Two distinct types of transit commuters were found to cluster in different parts of NYC, where the types of local-area crime problems also differed. These findings can help transit operators and policymakers build guardianship and assist place management in areas where potentially vulnerable commuters live.

The Effect of Local Crime on Well-Being: Evidence for Germany

This paper investigates the effect of local crime on well-being in Germany, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and a novel data set constructed from official police crime statistics, covering both counties and urban districts for the time period between 1994 and 2012. We find that local area crime has a significantly negative impact on life satisfaction, makes residents worry more frequently, and worry more about crime in Germany. In particular, a 1% increase in the crime frequency ratio results in a 0.043 standard deviation decrease in life satisfaction. This effect is driven almost exclusively by violent crimes, while property crimes and other crimes have no significant impact on well-being.

The Effect of Local Area Crime on Mental Health

This paper analyses the effect of local crime rates on the mental well-being of residents. Our identification strategy addresses the problem of sorting, and endogenous moving behaviour. We find that crime causes considerable mental distress of residents, and that these effects are mainly driven by property crime. However, individuals react also to violent crime, in particular in areas individuals may be exposed to when following their daily routines, such as travel to work. Local crime creates more distress for females, and is mainly related to depression and anxiety. The impact on mental well-being is large: We find that the increase in mental distress following a one standard deviation increase in local crime is about 2-4 times as large as that caused by a one standard deviation decrease in local employment, and about one seventh of the effect experienced by in the direct aftermath of the London Bombings of Jul 7th, 2005.

Perceived neighborhood safety and incident mobility disability among elders: the hazards of poverty.

BackgroundWe investigated whether lack of perceived neighborhood safety due to crime, or living in high crime neighborhoods was associated with incident mobility disability in elderly populations. We hypothesized that low-income elders and elders at retirement age (65 – 74) would be at greatest risk of mobility disability onset in the face of perceived or measured crime-related safety hazards.MethodsWe conducted the study in the New Haven Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (EPESE), a longitudinal cohort study of community-dwelling elders aged 65 and older who were residents of New Haven, Connecticut in 1982. Elders were interviewed beginning in 1982 to assess mobility (ability to climb stairs and walk a half mile), perceptions of their neighborhood safety due to crime, annual household income, lifestyle characteristics (smoking, alcohol use, physical activity), and the presence of chronic co-morbid conditions. Additionally, we collected baseline data on neighborhood crime events from the New Haven Register newspaper in 1982 to measure local area crime rates at the census tract level.ResultsAt baseline in 1982, 1,884 elders were without mobility disability. After 8 years of follow-up, perceiving safety hazards was associated with increased risk of mobility disability among elders at retirement age whose incomes were below the federal poverty line (HR 1.56, 95% CI 1.02 – 2.37). No effect of perceived safety hazards was found among elders at retirement age whose incomes were above the poverty line. No effect of living in neighborhoods with high crime rates (measured by newspaper reports) was found in any sub-group.ConclusionPerceiving a safety hazard due to neighborhood crime was associated with increased risk of incident mobility disability among impoverished elders near retirement age. Consistent with prior literature, retirement age appears to be a vulnerable period with respect to the effect of neighborhood conditions on elder health. Community violence prevention activities should address perceived safety among vulnerable populations, such as low-income elders at retirement age, to reduce future risks of mobility disability.

Is Crime Contagious?

Understanding whether criminal behavior is “contagious” is important for law enforcement and for policies that affect how people are sorted across social settings. We test the hypothesis that criminal behavior is contagious by using data from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) randomized housing mobility experiment to examine the extent to which lower local area crime rates decrease arrest rates among individuals. Our analysis exploits the fact that the effect of treatment group assignment yields different types of neighborhood changes across the five MTO demonstration sites. We use treatment by site interactions as instruments for measures of neighborhood crime rates, poverty, and racial segregation in our analysis of individual arrest outcomes. We are unable to detect evidence in support of the contagion hypothesis. Neighborhood racial segregation appears to be the most important explanation for across‐neighborhood variation in arrests for violent crimes in our sample, perhaps because drug market activity is more common in high‐minority neighborhoods.

Average household income, crime, and smoking behaviour in a local area: The Finnish 10-Town study

Social environments, like neighbourhoods, are increasingly recognised as determinants of health. While several studies have reported an association of low neighbourhood socio-economic status with morbidity, mortality and health risk behaviour, little is known of the health effects of neighbourhood crime rates. Using the ongoing 10-Town study in Finland, we examined the relations of average household income and crime rate measured at the local area level, with smoking status and intensity by linking census data of local area characteristics from 181 postal zip codes to survey responses to smoking behaviour in a cohort of 23,008 municipal employees. Gender-stratified multilevel analyses adjusted for age and individual occupational status revealed an association between low local area income rate and current smoking. High local area crime rate was also associated with current smoking. Both local area characteristics were strongly associated with smoking intensity. Among ever-smokers, being an ex-smoker was less likely among residents in areas with low average household income and a high crime rate. In the fully adjusted model, the association between local area income and smoking behaviour among women was substantially explained by the area-level crime rate. This study extends our knowledge of potential pathways through which social environmental factors may affect health.