Date of Award

8-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Discipline

Juvenile Justice

Abstract

The impact of crime taking place in society can be fluid and may quickly gain the form of fear among individuals with both direct and no direct victimization experience. While youth are extensively more vulnerable and immature than adults (Krulichová & Podaná, 2019), they are more likely to have or learn the fear of crime victimization. Therefore, the distribution and etiology of youth fear of crime victimization should not be overlooked. Ferraro's (1995) risk assessment framework suggests incorporating theoretical variables to predict the evolution of fear. With the inclusion of the perceived risk of victimization, Ferraro's risk assessment framework provides a comprehensive understanding of how an individual's response to crime transitions into fear of crime victimization. This research utilized the Ferraro risk assessment framework and employed Social Bond Theory to examine the impact of social bonds on youth's perceived risk and fear of crime victimization. This quantitative research utilized secondary data to perform analysis. The data for this research came from the National Evaluation of the Teens, Crime, and Community and the Community Works (TCC/CW)program, a self-report study of adolescents from several locations across the United States (Esbensen, 2005). This research conducted a Mediation Analysis to understand the relationships between social bonds, such as parental attachment, school commitment, the belief of guilt for wrongdoings, and involvement in legitimate activities, perceived risk of victimization, and fear of crime victimization among youth in general and across various race/ethnic and gender backgrounds of the youth. Results from Mediation Analysis identified that perceived risk of victimization significantly mediated the relationship between parental attachment and fear of crime, and school commitment and fear of crime among all youth and girls. Further, the study results suggested a non-significant relationship between all the elements of the social bonds, perceived risk of victimization, and fear of crime victimization among young males irrespective of their race and ethnic origin. Overall, two elements of social bonds, parental attachment and school commitment, were found to be important in minimizing the perceived risk of victimization and fear of crime victimization among the youth in general and specifically among females.

Keywords: social bonds, perceived risk of victimization, fear of crime victimization, Ferraro’s risk assessment framework, youth, gender

Committee Chair/Advisor

Myrna Cintron

Committee Co-Chair:

Nabil Ouassini

Committee Member

Shantae Motley

Committee Member

Douglas Hermond

Publisher

Prairie View A&M University

Rights

© 2021 Prairie View A & M University

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Date of Digitization

9/11/2023

Contributing Institution

John B Coleman Library

City of Publication

Prairie View

MIME Type

Application/PDF

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