Neighborhood Characteristics and Individual Homicide Risks:Effects of Social Cohesion, Confidence in the Police, and Socioeconomic Disadvantage

This study tests hypotheses on the relationship between characteristics of neighborhoods in the Netherlands—their socioeconomic disadvantage, social cohesion, and residents’ confidence in the police—and the likelihood of homicide victimization. These hypotheses are derived from social disorganization and strain/deprivation theory, but have rarely been tested at the neighborhood level. Furthermore, examining the validity of these hypotheses in the Netherlands, a country with relatively low homicide rates and geographically equal distributed social circumstances, provides a stronger test for the theories. Data from the Dutch Homicide Monitor 1996 to 2003, a national database of all homicides and their characteristics, are merged with data on characteristics of neighborhoods. Hierarchical logistic modeling is used to analyze the nested data. The results show that neighborhood social cohesion and socioeconomic disadvantage affect homicide risks, whereas indicators for confidence in the police do not have an effect. Implications for policy making and further theory development are discussed