Exploring Heterogeneous Effects of Victimization on Changes in Fear of Crime: The Moderating Role of Neighborhood Conditions

Figures & data

Figure 1. Causal effect of violent victimization between T1 and T2 on (a) feeling unsafe and (b) worry about crime conditional on neighborhood concentrated disadvantage for individuals who already reported violent victimization before T1.

Note: The black lines and their gray ribbons reflect the main models’ effect estimates and 95% confidence intervals. The error bars depict the effect estimates and confidence intervals of sensitivity analyses, in which neighborhood concentrated disadvantage is split into quintiles (the x-axis values of the error bars reflect the mean in the specific quintile groups). The density plots at the bottom depict the distribution of concentrated disadvantage among T1-only victims (dashed line; the “control” group) and T1+T2 victims (solid line; the “treatment” group). The y-axis shown only reflects the values of the conditional victimization effects, while the plot does not include an additional y-axis for the density distribution of concentrated disadvantage.

Table 2. Causal effects of T2 violent victimization by neighborhood concentrated disadvantage.

Violent victimization effects	Feel unsafe		Worry		Avoidance
	CE	SE	CE	SE	CE	SE
T2-only victims
Low NH disadvantage	0.21	[0.12]	−0.01	[0.13]	0.09	[0.10]
Medium NH disadvantage	0.21	[0.06]	0.13	[0.07]	0.22	[0.05]
High NH disadvantage	0.22	[0.13]	0.38	[0.14]	0.44	[0.12]
Difference: High–Low	0.01	[0.22]	0.39	[0.24]	0.35	[0.20]
T1+T2 victims
Low NH disadvantage	−0.27	[0.15]	−0.10	[0.16]	0.07	[0.13]
Medium NH disadvantage	0.14	[0.08]	0.15	[0.08]	0.04	[0.07]
High NH disadvantage	0.88	[0.15]	0.61	[0.16]	−0.01	[0.14]
Difference: High–Low	1.15	[0.27]	0.71	[0.28]	−0.08	[0.23]

Note: Low, medium, and high reflect 5-, 50-, and 95%-percentile values on the distribution of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage, respectively. Bold coefficients have: p < .05.

CE: causal effect; SE: standard error; NH: neighborhood.

Table 4. Causal effects of T2 violent victimization by neighborhood crime rate.

Violent victimization effects	Feel unsafe		Worry		Avoidance
	CE	SE	CE	SE	CE	SE
T2-only victims
Low NH crime rate	0.28	[0.16]	0.53	[0.17]	0.36	[0.14]
Medium NH crime rate	0.22	[0.06]	0.19	[0.06]	0.27	[0.05]
High NH crime rate	0.19	[0.10]	−0.01	[0.11]	0.22	[0.09]
Difference: High–Low	−0.09	[0.23]	−0.54	[0.25]	−0.15	[0.20]
T1+T2 victims
Low NH crime rate	0.29	[0.21]	0.17	[0.22]	−0.19	[0.18]
Medium NH crime rate	0.27	[0.07]	0.22	[0.07]	−0.01	[0.06]
High NH crime rate	0.25	[0.12]	0.26	[0.12]	0.09	[0.10]
Difference: High–Low	−0.04	[0.29]	0.09	[0.31]	0.28	[0.25]

Note: Low, medium, and high reflect 5-, 50-, and 95%-percentile values on the distribution of the neighborhood crime rate, respectively. Bold coefficients have: p < .05.

CE: causal effect; SE: standard error; NH: neighborhood.

Table 5. Causal effects of T2 violent victimization by neighborhood disorder.

Violent victimization effects	Feel unsafe		Worry		Avoidance
	CE	SE	CE	SE	CE	SE
T2-only victims
Low NH disorder	0.13	[0.14]	0.24	[0.15]	0.37	[0.13]
Medium NH disorder	0.20	[0.06]	0.18	[0.06]	0.29	[0.05]
High NH disorder	0.28	[0.12]	0.11	[0.13]	0.19	[0.11]
Difference: High–Low	0.15	[0.24]	−0.12	[0.26]	−0.19	[0.21]
T1+T2 victims
Low NH disorder	0.66	[0.17]	0.42	[0.19]	−0.07	[0.15]
Medium NH disorder	0.37	[0.08]	0.29	[0.08]	0.00	[0.07]
High NH disorder	0.01	[0.13]	0.14	[0.14]	0.10	[0.12]
Difference: High–Low	−0.65	[0.27]	−0.28	[0.29]	0.17	[0.24]

Note: Low, medium, and high reflect 5-, 50-, and 95%-percentile values on the distribution of the neighborhood disorder, respectively. Bold coefficients have: p < .05.

CE: causal effect; SE: standard error; NH: neighborhood.

Table 1. Causal effects of T2 violent victimization by victimization status.

Violent victimization effects	Feel unsafe		Worry		Avoidance
	CE	SE	CE	SE	CE	SE
T2-only victims	0.22	[0.06]	0.18	[0.06]	0.27	[0.05]
T1+T2 victims	0.28	[0.07]	0.24	[0.07]	0.02	[0.06]

Note: Bold coefficients have: p < .05.

CE: causal effect; SE: standard error; NH: neighborhood.

Table 6. Summary–moderation of victimization effects by neighborhood conditions.

	Disadvantage		Crime rate		Disorder
	T2-only victim	T1 + T2 victim	T2-only victim	T1 + T2 victim	T2-only victim	T1 + T2 victim
Feel unsafe		+				‒
Worry		+	‒
Avoidance	(+)

Note: For the gray +/– in brackets, moderation results are significant at the level: p < .10, while the black unbracketed symbols represent results significant at the level: p < .05.

+: victimization effect stronger in neighborhoods high in respective condition; –: victimization effect stronger in neighborhoods low in respective condition.

Figure 2. Average predictions of (a) feeling unsafe and (b) worry about crime for individuals who reported violent victimization only at T1 or at both T1 and T2 conditional on neighborhood concentrated disadvantage.

Note: The y-axis refers to the predicted values of z-standardized outcomes (i.e. outcomes with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1).

Table 3. Average marginal effects of neighborhood conditions.

	Feel unsafe		Worry		Avoidance
	AME	SE	AME	SE	AME	SE
NH disadvantage	0.42	[0.03]	0.21	[0.02]	0.34	[0.03]
NH crime rate	0.01	[0.03]	−0.02	[0.02]	0.01	[0.03]
NH disorder	−0.06	[0.03]	−0.04	[0.02]	−0.08	[0.03]

Note: Bold coefficients have: p < .05.

AME: average marginal effect; SE: standard error; NH: neighborhood.