CRIMINALS' AND NONCRIMINALS' PERCEPTIONS OF URBAN CRIME.

This paper offers an exploration of criminals' and noncriminals' percepitions of crime in an urban milieu. Specifically, we examine perceptions of the incidence of crime within the city, of variations in police protection, and of variations in the likely difficulty of committing crimes in different parts of the city. The analysis examines the distinctiveness of, and interrelationships among, these variables controlling for the racial status and criminal-noncriminal status of the respondents. Additionally, perceptions of the difficulty of committing crimes in different parts of the city are related to generalized perceptions of the city for our racial subgroups of criminals. The results provide evidence on the distinctiveness of criminals in such terms, on some factors influencing strategic criminal decision-making, and on ways in which criminal behavior shares common elements with other social behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]