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Using data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), we evaluated associations of neighborhood crime and safety with changes in adiposity (body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference). MESA is a longitudinal study of cardiovascular disease among adults aged 45-84 years at baseline in 2000-2002, from 6 US sites, with follow-up for MESA participants until 2012. Data for this study were limited to Chicago, Illinois, participants in the MESA Neighborhood Ancillary Study, for whom police-recorded crime data were available, and who had complete baseline data (n = 673). We estimated associations of individual-level safety, aggregated neighborhood-level safety, and police-recorded crime with baseline levels and trajectories of BMI and waist circumference over time using linear mixed modeling with random effects. We also estimated how changes in these factors related to changes in BMI and waist circumference using econometric fixed-effects models. At baseline, greater individual-level safety was associated with more adiposity. Increasing individual- and neighborhood-level safety over time were associated with decreasing BMI over the 10-year period, with a more pronounced effect observed in women for individual-level safety and men for neighborhood-level safety. Police-recorded crime was not associated with adiposity. Neighborhood-level safety likely influences adiposity change and subsequent cardiovascular risk in multiethnic populations.

Abstract Background Due to the inconsistent findings of prior studies, we explored the association of perceived safety and police-recorded crime measures with physical activity. Methods The study included 818 Chicago participants of the Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis 45 to 84 years of age. Questionnaire-assessed physical activity included a) transport walking; b) leisure walking; and c) non-walking leisure activities. Perceived safety was assessed through an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Police-recorded crime was assessed through 2-year counts of selected crimes (total and outdoor incivilities, criminal offenses, homicides) per 1000 population. Associations were examined using generalized estimating equation logistic regression models. Results Perceiving a safer neighborhood was positively associated with transport walking and perceiving lower violence was associated with leisure walking. Those in the lowest tertile of total or outdoor incivilities were more likely to report transport walking. Models with both perceived safety and police-recorded measures of crime as independent variables had superior fit for both transport walking and leisure walking outcomes. Neither perceived safety nor police-recorded measures of crime were associated with non-walking leisure activity. Conclusions Perceived and police-recorded measures had independent associations with walking and both should be considered in assessing the impact of neighborhood crime on physical activity.

Background: Crime may be a significant barrier to physical activity for urban African American women, yet few studies have examined this relationship in intervention studies. This study examines relationships among neighborhood crime incidents, perceptions of crime and safety, and adherence in a walking intervention among urban, midlife African-American women. Methods: The sample includes 148 women living in the City of Chicago. Violent crimes, disorder crimes, gun violence, and crime-related safety were examined. Adherence to walking frequency was measured as the percentage of recommended walks completed. Results: Controlling for demographic characteristics and treatment group, multivariate regression analyses showed walking adherence was not associated with any of the crime measures or crime-related safety (R2 = 0.130 to 0.147). The effect of enhanced treatment did not differ by levels of objective or perceived neighborhood crime or safety. Weak to moderate bivariate correlations were observed between objective crime measures and perceived disorder crime and crime-related safety (r = 0.04 to 0.25). Conclusions: Weak correlations between perceived and objective crime measures suggest they are measuring different aspects of the crime environment. Future studies should examine perceived and objective measures in other populations and settings and other neighborhood social factors which may moderate crime and safety effects on outcomes of physical activity interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND High neighborhood crime and low perceptions of safety may influence blood pressure (BP) through chronic stress. Few studies have examined these associations using longitudinal data. METHODS We used longitudinal data from 528 participants of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (aged 45–84, nonhypertensive at baseline) who lived in Chicago, Illinois. We examined associations of changes in individual-level perceived safety, aggregated neighborhood-level perceived safety, and past-year rates of police-recorded crime in a 1, ½, or ¼ mile buffer per 1,000 population with changes in systolic and diastolic BPs using fixed-effects linear regression. BP was measured five times between 2000 and 2012 and was adjusted for antihypertensive medication use (+10 mm Hg added to systolic and +5 mm Hg added to diastolic BP for participants on medication). Models were adjusted for time-varying sociodemographic and health-related characteristics and neighborhood socioeconomic status. We assessed differences by sex. RESULTS A standard deviation increase in individual-level perceived safety was associated with a 1.54 mm Hg reduction in systolic BP overall (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.25, 2.83), and with a 1.24 mm Hg reduction in diastolic BP among women only (95% CI: 0.37, 2.12) in adjusted models. Increased neighborhood-level safety was not associated with BP change. An increase in police-recorded crime was associated with a reduction in systolic and diastolic BPs among women only, but results were sensitive to neighborhood buffer size. CONCLUSIONS Results suggest individual perception of neighborhood safety may be particularly salient for systolic BP reduction relative to more objective neighborhood exposures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), we evaluated associations of neighborhood crime and safety with changes in adiposity (body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference). MESA is a longitudinal study of cardiovascular disease among adults aged 45-84 years at baseline in 2000-2002, from 6 US sites, with follow-up for MESA participants until 2012. Data for this study were limited to Chicago, Illinois, participants in the MESA Neighborhood Ancillary Study, for whom police-recorded crime data were available, and who had complete baseline data (n = 673). We estimated associations of individual-level safety, aggregated neighborhood-level safety, and police-recorded crime with baseline levels and trajectories of BMI and waist circumference over time using linear mixed modeling with random effects. We also estimated how changes in these factors related to changes in BMI and waist circumference using econometric fixed-effects models. At baseline, greater individual-level safety was associated with more adiposity. Increasing individual- and neighborhood-level safety over time were associated with decreasing BMI over the 10-year period, with a more pronounced effect observed in women for individual-level safety and men for neighborhood-level safety. Police-recorded crime was not associated with adiposity. Neighborhood-level safety likely influences adiposity change and subsequent cardiovascular risk in multiethnic populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Bayesian approach to geographic profiling methodology involves updating journey-to-crime probability estimates with probabilities based on the distribution of residences of other offenders who committed crimes in the same locations. Tests were conducted on serial offenders from Baltimore County and Chicago and six different methods using five different criteria were compared. The Bayesian method was more accurate than the existing journey-to-crime methods and was as accurate as the center of minimum distance, the current best method. Suggestions for improving the methodology further are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of crime generators, crime attractors, and offender anchor points on the distribution of street robberies across the nearly 25,000 census blocks of Chicago are examined. The analysis includes a wide array of activities and facilities that are expected to attract criminals and generate crime. These include a variety of legal and illegal businesses and infrastructural accessibility facilitators. In addition to these crime attractors and generators, the role of the presence of motivated offenders’ anchor points, as measured by offenders’ residence and gang activity, is assessed. The analysis also includes crime attractors, crime generators, and offender anchor points in adjacent census blocks. The findings demonstrate the strength of the effects of crime generators and attractors and offender anchor points on the frequency of street robbery at the census block level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using data on solved crimes in The Hague, the Netherlands, we study crime trips between areas where offenders live and where they offend, in order to test the hypothesis that the number of criminal opportunities between two areas (“intervening opportunities”) influences the number of crime trips that take place between those areas. The findings are that, contrary to the hypothesis, simple geographical distance between two areas explains the number of crime trips between them better than various measures of intervening opportunities do.Crime Prevention and Community Safety (2008) 10, 85–96. doi:10.1057/palgrave.cpcs.8150062 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the consequences of encounters between strangers that might have resulted in robbery or rape and explores how the eventual outcomes of those incidents were related to the resistance offered by their potential victims. It is based on data from the National Crime Survey. Although the conclusions necessarily are tentative, it appears that forceful resistance was related to less frequent success by robbers, but robbery victims resisting forcefully had a greater risk of being physically attacked. Forceful resistance in potential rape incidents was related to higher risk of attack and bodily injury with no apparent reduction in risk of rape. On the other hand, victims who were able to offer nonforceful resistance reported a reduced risk of being robbed and suffered less frequent attack and injury. In rape incidents, nonforceful resistance was linked to lower risk of actual rape but was unrelated to risk of attack or other forms of injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although victims surveys can generate in formation about characteristics of victims. precursors of victimization, effectiveness of resistance, victim offender interaction, effects of crime on the victims and police response. current research has hardly begun to mine their potential.. Much of the underutilization and misinterpretation victim surveys can be understood in light of their original objective: to measure the `dark figure' of crime. Victimization estimates were originally intended to intended to index all occurrences of crime, both crimes that become known to the police and those that do not. Because victims-Survey data and police data are products Of numerous definitional decision made by victims. other citizens, and the police. some types of crime are likely to he captured by both data .sources. some by only one, and some by neither. Thus victim surveys do not simply reveal more crimes than police statistics: they capture different crime. These very difference makes victim-survey data especially valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using regression analysis of community areas of Chicago, patterns of homicide, robbery, and aggravated assault are analyzed for the mid-1970s. It is found that neighborhoods in which very poor and middle-class people live in close proximity are those in which rates of all three types of criminal violence are highest. Of all demographic and crime variables analyzed, proximity was by far the most strongly related to crime rates. This relationship was taken to be another indicator of the extreme burden placed on blacks in heavily segregated cities of the urban North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the decision of a victim of crime to notify the police of an assault. The article is concerned with the calling into action of the criminal justice system. The victim's decision to notify the police of a crime is based upon his calculation of the benefits derived from notification and the costs incurred. These costs and benefits may vary by type of crime, of victim, and of situation. Black victims may believe the probability of police action resulting from their notification is very low, while whites may believe the probability is very high. The type of crime committed may be one in which police intervention would be of little use. Burglary or larceny victims may not notify the police because they believe that there is little the police can do to recover their loss. Other victims may refuse to notify the police because they are somehow implicated in the crime itself, or believe the police will think them to be implicated. Thus, the article is an attempt to explore an optimization model of decision-making, a model of victim notification of the police based on the victim's assessment of the costs and benefits derived from notification.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the association of changes in perceived safety and police-recorded crime with changes in transport and leisure walking using longitudinal data from Chicago residents participating in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (2000-2012). METHOD: Main exposures included perceived safety (self-reported as feeling safe walking in the neighborhood and reporting violence to be a problem in the neighborhood), and one-year counts of police-recorded crime occurring within a one-mile buffer of participants' residences. Main outcomes included transport and leisure walking (self-reported and calculated as total minutes/week across four study visits). Fixed effects models assessed the association of change in perceived safety and police-recorded crime with changes in transport and leisure walking over a 10-year period for 796 adults. RESULTS: No associations were found between changes in perceived safety and either changes in transport or leisure walking. Residing in areas with increases in murder was associated with decreases in transport walking. However, no other associations were found with police-recorded crime. CONCLUSION: There continues to be a need to explore the benefits of cultivating safe neighborhoods that enhance resident health and well-being. Research should continue examining how community initiatives may build safe environments and community identity that promote walking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]