Reducing Fear of Crime: Program Evaluation Surveys in Newark and Houston, 1983-1984 (ICPSR 8496)

Version Date: Mar 30, 2006

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Principal Investigator(s):
Antony Pate; Sampson O. Annan

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08496.v2

Version V2

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Summary

Households and establishments in seven neighborhoods in Houston, Texas, and Newark, New Jersey, were surveyed to determine the extent of victimization experiences and crime prevention measures in these areas. Citizens' attitudes toward the police were also examined. Baseline data were collected to determine residents' perceptions of crime, victimization experiences, crime-avoidance behavior, and level of satisfaction with the quality of life in their neighborhoods (Parts 1 and 3). Follow-up surveys were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of experimental police programs designed to reduce the fear of crime within the communities. These results are presented in Parts 2 and 4. In Part 5, questions similar to those in the baseline survey were posed to two groups of victims who reported crimes to the police. One group had received a follow-up call to provide the victim with information, assistance, and reassurance that someone cared, and the other was a control group of victims that had not received a follow-up call. Part 6 contains data from a newsletter experiment conducted by the police departments after the baseline data were gathered, in one area each of Houston and Newark. Two versions of an anti-crime newsletter were mailed to respondents to the baseline survey and also to nonrespondents living in the area. These groups were then interviewed, along with control groups of baseline respondents and nonrespondents who might have seen the newsletter but were not selected for the mailing. Demographic data collected include age, sex, race, education and employment.

Citation

Pate, Antony, and Annan, Sampson O. Reducing Fear of Crime:  Program Evaluation Surveys in Newark and Houston, 1983-1984. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-03-30. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08496.v2

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (83-IJ-CX-0003)

Subject Terms

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1983 -- 1984

Date of Collection

1983 -- 1984

Data Collection Notes

  1. The codebooks and data collection instruments are provided as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided through the ICPSR Website on the Internet.

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Sample

Parts 1 and 6: Random sample of households. Part 2: Follow-up interviews from the same respondents who completed surveys in the pre-intervention stage, and first-time respondents from households in the pre-intervention sample who did not complete the first survey. Parts 3 and 4: Random sample of nonresidential establishments. Part 5: Random sample of victims.

Universe

Residents and nonresidential establishments from neighborhoods in Newark and Houston.

Data Source

personal interviews

Data Type(s)

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Original Release Date

1986-08-18

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Pate, Antony, and Sampson O. Annan. Reducing Fear of Crime: Program Evaluation Surveys in Newark and Houston, 1983-1984. ICPSR08496-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2017-12-19. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08496.v2

2006-03-30 File CB8496.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable, and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to reflect these additions.

1998-04-28 Missing data values were standardized for all variables, and the SAS and SPSS data definition statements were modified accordingly. Also, the codebooks and data collection instruments are now available as a Portable Document Format file.

1986-08-18 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Standardized missing values.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.