VICTIMIZATION AND PERCEPTION OF CRIME IN A GHETTO COMMUNITY.

The article focuses on the issue of the victimization and crime in a ghetto community. Field Surveys I collected data on 511 randomly selected adults in three police districts in Washington, D.C. Forty percent of those interviewed said they had never been victimized. The respondents in Washington saw crime as serious, and 75% thought it was getting worse. Field Surveys II focuses on a national, random sample of 10,000 persons, 2,100 of whom were victimized. Despite high crime rates in the police precincts sampled, a majority of the respondents thought their neighborhoods were no worse than most other areas in the city. Respondents were asked whether they had ever been victimized in any of nine possible ways; those who replied affirmatively were asked whether this had happened during the last twelve months. The pattern of victimization by age is different for each race-ethnic group, although the differences by age within each race-ethnic group are small. Long-time residents of the community are more likely to be victimized, in all four race-ethnic groups, than are newcomers, except among blacks, among whom those of medium- and long-term residence are more likely to be victimized.