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Perception or Reality, What Matters Most When it Comes to Crime in Your Neighbourhood?

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Abstract

Public perceptions of crime and victimisation can influence an individual’s subjective well-being. Research into the impact of the fear of crime and victimisation on subjective well-being, however, has been limited; particularly with respect to the relative contributions of real versus perceived crime towards an individual’s self-reported life satisfaction. Improving our understanding of the relationship between crime and well-being is important, as public resources assigned to reducing or controlling crime could be assigned to addressing other social concerns. This paper extends the literature by exploring the contribution of real and perceived crime in an individual’s local area to their self-reported life satisfaction. Our results indicate that: (1) individuals’ perceptions of crime in their local area are far greater than actual levels of crime; (2) the gap between perceived and real crime is widening as real crime rates fall faster than the perceived rate of crime; (3) real crime rates detract more from an individual’s self-reported life satisfaction than perceived rates of crime; however, (4) perceived rates of crime have an adverse impact on life satisfaction beyond those associated with real crime; and (5) there is significant heterogeneity in the life satisfaction effects of real and perceived crime among groups of individuals. These results, together with empirical evidence highlighting successful strategies for moderating perceptions of crime, facilitate the development of more informed public policy that will improve individual life satisfaction and, ultimately, community well-being.

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Notes

  1. Unless otherwise stated all figures are in AUD. As at 10 August 2013 1 AUD—0.92 USD.

  2. At least two Waves of responses are needed from each individual in order to estimate a fixed effects model.

  3. Exceptions include: Certain diplomatic personnel of overseas governments, customarily excluded from censuses and surveys; overseas residents in Australia (i.e., persons who had stayed or intended to stay in Australia <1 year); members of non-Australian defence forces (and their dependents) stationed in Australia; residents of institutions (such as hospitals and other health care institutions, military and police installations, correctional and penal institutions, convents and monasteries) and other non-private dwellings (such as hotels and motels); and people living in remote and sparsely populated areas.

  4. We take advantage of Mark Schaffer and Steven Stillman’s Stata user written command xtoverid. This is downloadable from the Statistical Software Components Archive using the Stata command "ssc install xtoverid".

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Acknowledgments

This research would not have been possible without the data provided by the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. This paper uses unit record data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. The HILDA project was initiated and is funded by the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (Melbourne Institute). The findings and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to either FaHCSIA or the Melbourne Institute.

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  1. Social and Economic Research Program (SERP), Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, QLD, 4122, Australia

    Christopher L. Ambrey, Christopher M. Fleming & Matthew Manning

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  1. Christopher L. Ambrey
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  2. Christopher M. Fleming
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Correspondence to Christopher M. Fleming.

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Ambrey, C.L., Fleming, C.M. & Manning, M. Perception or Reality, What Matters Most When it Comes to Crime in Your Neighbourhood?. Soc Indic Res 119, 877–896 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0521-6

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