‘CRIMINALS ARE INSIDE OF OUR HOMES’: TWO MODELS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEIVED NEIGHBOURHOOD CRIME RATE AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE

This thesis examines two models of relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) and perceptions of neighbourhood crime rates. In the first model, I seek to understand why some incidents of IPV are followed by revictimisation after police intervention; in the second model, I seek to understand why some people believe that they live in a higher crime neighbourhood. More specifically, however, I examine whether living in a higher crime neighbourhood increases one’s risk for IPV revictimisation and, alternatively, whether IPV victimisation increases one’s perception of his or her neighbourhood crime rate. Probit regression, Heckman selection probit regression, and logistic regression are used to analyse the 1999 and 2004 Canadian General Social Surveys of victimisation. The GSS is valuable in that it asks respondents about the perceived level of crime in their community. Since there is some evidence to suggest a high correlation between perceived and real crime levels (Raudenbush and Sampson 1999), this variable is used as an independent variable in the first analysis as a measure of the actual level of criminality in the respondent’s neighbourhood. However, since this variable measures the respondent’s perception of his or her neighbourhood crime rate, the same variable may be used as the outcome variable in the second analysis. After all, one’s perceptions may be influenced by multiple factors. In this instance, the resident’s perceptions of living in a higher crime neighbourhood are believed to correlate with insecurity and, in turn, a fear of crime. In the analysis of IPV revictimisation, I find that those who live in a higher crime neighbourhood are much more likely to be revictimised and that—when sample selection bias is controlled—women are also more likely to be revictimised. In the analysis of perceptions of neighbourhood crime rates, I find that women who experience IPV revictimisation are significantly more likely to believe that they live in a higher crime neighbourhood, even when controlling for income. Thus, women are more likely to be abused by an intimate partner, to report their abuse to the police, to be reabused following police intervention, and—as a result of this revictimisation—to believe that they live in a higher crime neighbourhood.

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