Criminal Justice Data & Public Policy

Extant research on the fear of crime and criminal victimization had generally found that women express greater levels of fear than men. Using survey data, this study contrasted perceptions of safety and the fear of personal and property victimization among male and female respondents. Specifically considered was the relationship between demographic characteristics, fear facilitators, fear inhibitors, neighborhood context, and crime-related fear. Results indicated some gender differences in the influence explanatory variables had on fear, although not all achieved statistical significance.…

The goal of this research is to describe changes in enforcement activity in the City of St. Louis from 2007 through 2017 and to better understand community variation in these trends. Results indicate that enforcement activity decreased over the study period, particularly for non-felony arrests among Blacks. With the exception of summonses, enforcement actions declined in most neighborhoods but were most pronounced in communities characterized by high levels of economic disadvantage. Reductions in misdemeanor and bench warrants arrests also were…

Existing research on attitudes toward the police identified demographic variables predicting citizen satisfaction with police services and performance. Common themes in this literature were the disparate rates of satisfaction reported by African American and Caucasian citizens. While it is generally understood that African American citizens express lower levels of satisfaction, the degree to which this reduced satisfaction is consistent among African Americans and the factors causing such variation are unclear. In addition, variation in levels of citizen satisfaction across diverse…

In the study of crime and delinquency, various contributions have been made by the feminist tradition. Approaches to studying female crime are based upon the recognition that traditional theories capture the experience of males and do not readily apply to females (Chesney- Lind, 2001). In its development, feminist criminology has focused on the etiology of female offending and on the treatment of females in the criminal justice system (Haney, 2000). This paper is concerned with the latter; that is, we seek to utilize findings…