Perceptions of Crime Research Papers (original) (raw)

— The causations of crimes that are relevant in the cyberspace concurrently impact in the physical space and vise versa. This paper aims to explore parents' perceptions of the factors that cause socioeconomic cybercrime in Nigeria. Despite a long-standing view that the juvenile offenders of today could become the hardened criminals of tomorrow, and the conclusions of a number of developmental theories on the stability of delinquency across the life course, the existing data on cybercrimes in Nigeria have principally been derived from studies involving university students. Yet, individuals' moral-standard-levels, which shape their offending capacities, are mostly developed in childhood. The empirical basis for this paper is face-to-face interviews with 17 Nigerian parents regarding children's vulnerability to involvement in cybercrime. Drawing upon qualitative data, this paper argues that a complex web of familial factors and structural forces, alongside cultural forces, explains the degree of cybercrime involvement on the part of Nigerian youths.

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- Cyberpsychology, Family studies, Cybercrimes, Children and Families
- by JosAnn Cutajar
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- Criminology, Criminal Justice, Social Sciences, Criminalistics

Chile is considered as one of the safest countries in Latin America, with a below-the-average world crime rate. However, during the last few decades, the country has experienced a deterioration in public perceptions of safety. This paper investigates public perceptions of crime in the 52 municipalities of the metropolitan area of Santiago, by employing an index of socioeconomic development for each municipality. Multilevel logistic regression analysis is used in order to assess the impact of individual and municipal-level variables on perceptions of crime in these municipalities. The results show that women exhibit higher perceptions of crime, while people living in rural areas, inactive people, and people with higher education and income have generally lower perceptions. Multidimensional poverty is positively associated with high perceptions of crime, while municipal spending on health and/or education does not show a relationship with perceptions of crime. Regarding socioeconomic development level of municipalities, the results show that people living in municipalities of high development show the lowest perceptions of crime, despite the fact that these municipalities do actually exhibit the highest crime rates, a fact confirming the ‘perception gap’ and the ‘neighbourhood favouritism’ theories. The results and conclusions of this study can be used not only by local policy-makers but also by officials in other cities that—like Santiago—are characterised by high urban segregation.

- by Elena Rotarou
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- Neighbourhood Development, Fear of Crime, Multilevel modelling, Municipalities

Reseach conducted into public perceptions of the police has tended to be concerned with isolating specific and measurable factors that might improve public attitudes, whether it be the quality of public encounters with the police, or police activities that may lead to improved levels of public confidence in the police. However, research also suggests that the public's primary source of information about crime is the media. This systematic map provides an outline of the key elements of 174 studies into the impact of the media on public perceptions of crime and policing. In particular, the map groups the studies by three criteria: the main research topic; the research method used; and the geographical location of the study. The findings of this short paper suggest that studies into the fear of crime predominate this subject area, and a large proportion of studies were conducted in the United States.

- by Kevin Drakulich
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- Race and Racism, Stigma, Implicit Bias, Perceptions of Crime

In this article, we combine data from the housing market with data from
a victimization survey to estimate the effect of crime perception on housing prices in
the City of Barcelona from 2004 to 2006. Using dwelling data and a hedonic price
model (using both OLS and quantile regressions), in the first stage, we estimate the
shadow price of the location of dwellings. In the second stage, we analyse the impact
of crime perception, after controlling for other district characteristics such as local
public spending and immigration, on this locational valuation. After accounting for
the possible endogeneity of crime and housing prices, our findings suggest that crime
exerts relevant costs beyond its direct costs. Indeed, a one standard deviation increase
in perceived security is associated with a 0.57% increase in the valuation of districts.
Moreover, in districts perceived as being less safe than the average for the City of
Barcelona, houses are highly discounted. Less safe districts have on average a valuation
that is 1.27% lower.