Pulling us apart? The association between fear of crime and social cohesion in South Africa

South African Crime Quarterly ◽

10.17159/2413-3108/2016/v0i55a390 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Benjamin J. Roberts ◽

Steven L. Gordon

Keyword(s):

Law Enforcement ◽

Social Cohesion ◽

Fear Of Crime ◽

Social Trust ◽

Strong Support ◽

Theoretical Models ◽

Social Fabric ◽

Perceptions Of Safety ◽

Nationally Representative ◽

Adverse Influence

Fear of crime, like crime itself, is thought to be a factor that constrains efforts by government and non-state actors at promoting socially cohesive communities and a caring society. As concern over South Africa's social fabric have mounted, increasing policy attention has been directed at perceptions of safety and nation-building. In this study, we use nationally representative survey data to examine recent theoretical models on the link between fear of crime and social cohesion within communities. The results do not offer strong support for the hypothesis that higher fear of crime is associated with lower levels of social trust, neighbouthood ties and civic cohesion, although fear does have a moderate, adverse influence on attitudes towards law enforcement.

Download Full-text

The Value of Social Control: Racial Resentment, Punitiveness, and White Support for Spending on Law Enforcement

Sociological Perspectives ◽

10.1177/0731121419899387 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 63 (5) ◽

pp. 697-718

Author(s):

R. C. Morris ◽

Ryan Jerome LeCount

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Law Enforcement ◽

Political Ideology ◽

Fear Of Crime ◽

Contextual Factors ◽

Population Characteristics ◽

Criminal Justice Policy ◽

Community Needs ◽

Racial Resentment ◽

Nationally Representative

A well-established body of research finds that racial resentment predicts support for punitive criminal justice policy. This article links racial resentment with punitiveness, expanding the existing research—a body of work that largely treats punitivity as a response to threat. Data for this study come from three nationally representative samples and incorporate individual and contextual factors. Key variables include Racial Resentment, Political Ideology, Punitiveness, Crime—both objective crime (i.e., county-level crime rates) and subjective crime (i.e., fear of crime), racial population characteristics, and theoretically relevant controls. Contextual factors help to clarify whether support for spending is a “rational” response to crime or a “nonrational” response to perceived racial threat as expressed through punitiveness. Findings indicate that, net of a host of factors, a punitive value orientation as well as racial resentment predicts support for increased spending on law enforcement. Our analysis also suggests that racial resentment and punitivity are more consistent and stronger predictors of support even when controlling for Crime. The article closes with a discussion of opportunity cost vis-à-vis law enforcement and other community needs. Implications for further study of race and criminal justice policy get discussed with suggestions for dealing with the future of identity-based politics.

Download Full-text

An exploratory study on perceptions of safety, fear of crime, and victimization experiences among faculty and staff at an urban university: a focus on gender

Criminal Justice Studies A Critical Journal of Crime Law and Society ◽

10.1080/1478601x.2011.544193 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 37-55 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Angela R. Gover ◽

Elizabeth A. Tomsich ◽

Wesley G. Jennings ◽

George E. Higgins

Keyword(s):

Exploratory Study ◽

Fear Of Crime ◽

Urban University ◽

Perceptions Of Safety ◽

Faculty And Staff

Download Full-text

Does Neighborhood Cohesion Moderate the Association between Cancer and Psychological Distress?

Journal of Applied Social Science ◽

10.1177/19367244211043071 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 193672442110430

Author(s):

Victoria A. Reynolds ◽

Manacy Pai

Keyword(s):

Cervical Cancer ◽

Psychological Distress ◽

Social Cohesion ◽

Ordinary Least Squares ◽

Neighborhood Cohesion ◽

Breast And Cervical Cancer ◽

Neighborhood Social Cohesion ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Interview Survey ◽

Nationally Representative

The purpose of this study is to examine (a) the association between cancer diagnosis and psychological distress and (b) the extent to which this association is moderated by perceptions of neighborhood social cohesion. Data are drawn from the 2013 wave of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), a nationally representative survey on broad health topics. We employ ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to examine the links between cancer, neighborhood cohesion, and distress. Findings reveal no statistically significant difference in psychological distress between women with breast and cervical cancer. However, neighborhood social cohesion does moderate the effect of cancer on distress. While perceptions of neighborhood cohesion do not affect levels of psychological distress among women with breast cancer, perceived connectedness with neighbors translates into significantly lower levels of mental distress among women diagnosed with cervical cancer.

Download Full-text

Uncovering the Mitigating Psychological Response to Monitoring Technologies: Police Body Cameras Not Only Constrain but Also Depolarize

Organization Science ◽

10.1287/orsc.2021.1452 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shefali V. Patil ◽

Ethan S. Bernstein

Keyword(s):

Law Enforcement ◽

Strong Support ◽

Field Studies ◽

Negative Effects ◽

Technological Advances ◽

Ideological Divergence ◽

Monitoring Technologies ◽

Ideological Tensions ◽

Shed Light ◽

Psychological Benefit

Despite organizational psychologists’ long-standing caution against monitoring (citing its reduction in employee autonomy and thus effectiveness), many organizations continue to use it, often with no detriment to performance and with strong support, not protest, from employees. We argue that a critical step to resolving this anomaly is revisiting researchers’ fundamental assumptions about access to gathered data. Whereas previous research assumes that access resides nearly exclusively with supervisors and other evaluators, technological advances have enabled employee access. We hypothesize that with employee access, the psychological effects of monitoring may be far more complex than previously acknowledged. Whereas multiparty access may still decrease employee autonomy, it may also trigger an important psychological benefit: alleviating employees’ perceptions of polarization—the increasing social and ideological divergence between themselves and their evaluators. Access gives employees unprecedented opportunities to use the “objective” footage to show others their perspective, address evaluators’ erroneous assumptions and stereotypes, and otherwise defuse ideological tensions. Lower perceived polarization, in turn, attenuates the negative effects that low autonomy would otherwise have on employee effectiveness. We find support for these hypotheses across three field studies conducted in the law enforcement context, which has been a trailblazer in using technological advances to grant broad access to multiple parties, including employees. Overall, our studies shed light on the conflicting (and ultimately more innocuous) impact of monitoring and encourage scholars to break from prior approaches to account for its increasing egalitarianism.

Download Full-text

Parental Discipline and Child Psychosocial Outcomes in Iraq and Kurdistan: Evidence From a Nationally Representative Sample

Journal of Interpersonal Violence ◽

10.1177/0886260520922343 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 088626052092234

Author(s):

Matthew William Logan ◽

Paul-Philippe Pare ◽

Brandon Dulisse

Keyword(s):

Empirical Studies ◽

Strong Support ◽

Psychosocial Outcomes ◽

Psychological Aggression ◽

Future Research ◽

Physical Discipline ◽

Parental Discipline ◽

Practical Applications ◽

Subsequent Effect ◽

Nationally Representative

Few empirical studies have been conducted on populations in the Middle-East, particularly in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, regarding the relationships between the type of discipline used by caregivers and its subsequent effect on children. Our analyses, which are based on data from the Iraq Multi-Cluster Survey 2018, replicate the prior work of scholars using Western samples, and suggest that variation in parental practices pertaining to the discipline of children is a robust predictor of several negative psychosocial outcomes among Iraqi and Kurdish youth. Specifically, we found that children who were subjected to various forms of violent physical discipline, psychological aggression, and neglectful parenting were more likely to exhibit an array of symptoms of psychosocial disorder, relative to measures of adequate parenting. Our analyses also provide strong support for the presence of comorbid psychosocial outcomes among Iraqi and Kurdish youth that stem from differences in the practice of parental discipline. The results of the current study are discussed regarding both theoretical and practical applications. The study’s limitations are also addressed and suggestions for future research on the discipline–outcome nexus are given.

Download Full-text

Extending Research on the “War on Cops”: The Effects of Ferguson on Nonfatal Assaults Against U.S. Police Officers

Crime & Delinquency ◽

10.1177/0011128719890266 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 67 (1) ◽

pp. 3-26 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

John A. Shjarback ◽

Edward R. Maguire

Keyword(s):

Law Enforcement ◽

Police Officers ◽

Law Enforcement Officers ◽

Federal Bureau ◽

Monthly Data ◽

National Debate ◽

American Law ◽

Time Series Analyses ◽

Perceptions Of Safety ◽

The Impact

This study tests whether violence directed toward American law enforcement has increased in the wake of events in Ferguson, Missouri, in summer 2014. Using monthly data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) reports (2010–2016), we carried out time-series analyses to examine trends in nonfatal assaults on police officers in a sample of 4,921 agencies. Neither injurious nor noninjurious assaults on officers increased following Michael Brown’s death in August 2014. The findings are robust across a variety of model specifications and estimation techniques, providing little evidence of a “War on Cops” through 2016. The study adds empirical rigor to an ongoing national debate based largely on speculation/anecdotes. The impact and potential consequences of the current climate for officers’ perceptions of safety/risk are discussed.

Download Full-text

The robustness of reciprocity: Experimental evidence that each form of reciprocity is robust to the presence of other forms of reciprocity

Science Advances ◽

10.1126/sciadv.aba0504 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (23) ◽

pp. eaba0504

Author(s):

David Melamed ◽

Brent Simpson ◽

Jered Abernathy

Keyword(s):

Social Networks ◽

Prosocial Behavior ◽

Experimental Evidence ◽

Real World ◽

Strong Support ◽

Theoretical Models ◽

Current Understanding ◽

The Real ◽

Topological Features

Prosocial behavior is paradoxical because it often entails a cost to one’s own welfare to benefit others. Theoretical models suggest that prosociality is driven by several forms of reciprocity. Although we know a great deal about how each of these forms operates in isolation, they are rarely isolated in the real world. Rather, the topological features of human social networks are such that people are often confronted with multiple types of reciprocity simultaneously. Does our current understanding of human prosociality break down if we account for the fact that the various forms of reciprocity tend to co-occur in nature? Results of a large experiment show that each basis of human reciprocity is remarkably robust to the presence of other bases. This lends strong support to existing models of prosociality and puts theory and research on firmer ground in explaining the high levels of prosociality observed in human social networks.

Download Full-text

Perceptions of safety confronted by experience: How visitors to Istanbul modified their perceptions of risk and fear in the light of personal experience

International Review of Victimology ◽

10.1177/0269758019864726 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 26 (3) ◽

pp. 261-275 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Rob I Mawby ◽

Mine Özaşçılar ◽

Neylan Ziyalar

Keyword(s):

Personal Experience ◽

Fear Of Crime ◽

Perceptions Of Risk ◽

Two Samples ◽

Proxy Measure ◽

Perceptions Of Safety ◽

Similar Sample

This paper compares the perceptions of risk and safety of those arriving on a visit to Istanbul with a similar sample of those returning from their trip. While the two samples are of different individuals, the research does provide a proxy measure of change, or lack of it, in the light of personal experience. In this sense, it offers an advantage over traditional crime surveys that present a snapshot of perceptions at one point in time. The findings are discussed in the context of more general research on fear of crime and perceptions of risk, and how these are – or are not – influenced by personal experience.

Download Full-text

Social Cohesion and Its Correlates: A Comparison of Western and Asian Societies

Comparative Sociology ◽

10.1163/15691330-12341468 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 17 (3-4) ◽

pp. 426-455 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Jan Delhey ◽

Klaus Boehnke ◽

Georgi Dragolov ◽

Zsófia S. Ignácz ◽

Mandi Larsen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Social Cohesion ◽

Social Trust ◽

Well Being ◽

Political Freedom ◽

Social Forces ◽

World Region ◽

Cultural Conditions ◽

Trust In Institutions ◽

Practical Conclusion ◽

Open Question

AbstractTrust can either be conceived of as a social glue in its own right, or as a constitutive element of a larger societal syndrome, termed social cohesion. This contribution takes the latter perspective, analyzing social trust and trust in institutions as integral parts of social cohesion more generally. Despite ongoing worries about the state of social cohesion in contemporary societies, surprisingly little is known as to which macro-level conditions actually weaken social cohesion, and which foster it. It remains an open question whether social cohesion is shaped by universal social forces that work similarly in various world regions, or by region-specific ones (the same holds true for outcomes of social cohesion). Against this background, the present paper seeks to advance our understanding of correlates of social cohesion by systematically comparing Western and Asian societies. The empirical analysis is based on the most comprehensive index of social cohesion currently available, the Bertelsmann Social Cohesion Radar. In separate analyses of 34 Western and 22 Asian societies, the authors explore the associations of economic, social, political, and cultural conditions with cohesion, as well as the associations between cohesion and population well-being. The results suggest that while some correlates (such as economic prosperity) can indeed be considered universal, others (e.g. income inequality, political freedom) work differently in Western and Asian societies. The authors link these findings to sociological and cross-cultural psychological theories on Asian modernization and Asian values. The practical conclusion is that not all policy recommendations for strengthening social cohesion can easily travel from one world region to another.

Download Full-text