Community cohesion and violent predatory victimization: a theoretical extension and cross-national test of opportunity theory

This studyextends theresearch on theopportunity theory ofcriminal victimization. Specifically, it is proposed that living in a cohesive community directly reduces the likelihood of experiencing violent predatory criminal victimization. Tightly knit communities have higher levels of informal guardianship, and members of such communities are more active in intervening in public deviant orcriminal activities, thus limiting opportunities for thecommission ofviolent crimes. This theoretical model istested witha sample ofmore than 19,000 respondents tonational-level victimization surveys from 15 countries. A replication isalso performed withdata from over 10,000 respondents tocity level surveys inanother 12 countries. The results provide strongsupport for the hypothesis thatpeople who live incommunities which they perceive tobe cohesive have a lower likelihood ofviolent victimization. The data indicate thatnetofrelevant socioeconomic, demographic, lifestyle, and neighborhood status characteristics, community cohesion consistently reduces thelikelihood ofrobbery andassault near the home, androbbery andassault near thehome by strangers. The consistency oftheresults suggests thatcommunity cohesion maybea major determinant ofvictimization risk. Although it has long been known that community characteristics are associated with their levels of crime,the bulk of the research investigating this linkhas focused on explaining neighborhood differences inoffendingfrequency. In the lasttwentyyears, criminologists havebroadenedtheir focus to develop theories explaining a different phenomenon: individual differences in victimization