Crime-related fears and demographic diversity in Los Angeles County after the 1992 civil disturbances

The purpose of this research was to assess demographic differences in expos ure to traumatic events and fear of crime. This is part of a larger project that assessed the impact of the 1992 Los Angeles civil disturbances on psy chological functioning. Random digit dialing methods were used to obtain an adult household probability sample (age 18 or older) representative of the targeted region (Los Angeles County). A total of 1200 individuals complete d a 40-minute comprehensive telephone interview Four hundred interviews wer e sampled from South Central (the area most heavily affected by the rioting ), and 800 were sampled from the remainder of L.A. County. A series of chi- square analyses indicated that there were differences in (a) prevalence of lifetime and past year victimization, (b) perception of neighborhood proble ms, (c) exposure to the disturbances, and (d) fear of crime as a function o f demographic characteristics (i.e., gender, race, ethnicity, community). A hierarchical multiple regression was conducted using demographic variables , victimization and exposure to the disturbances to predict fear of crime R esults indicated that demographic variables were significantly predictive o f crime fear; but that report of neighborhood problems was the strongest pr edictor. Additionally, exposure to the disturbances remained a significant predictor of crime fear after controlling for the effects of victimization demographics, and neighborhood problems. Results suggest that while diverse community race, ethnicity and gender variables contribute to differences i n crime fear neighborhood problems may be the most important predictor acro ss all groups of subjects. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.