Perceived racial and ethnic composition of neighborhood and perceived risk of crime

This paper examines the relationship between perceived racial and ethnic composition of neighborhood and criminal threat, which is operationalized as the perceived risk of criminal victimization. To address this question. we use interviews with a statewide random sample of 3,000 Florida residents conducted in the fall of 1996. This is the first assessment of this issue to include Hispanics-the largest and fastest growing minority in the State-as both respondents and as ethnic "others" whose presence may be a source of perceived riskfor some. For the full sample, OLS regressions show that perceived risk of victimization is influenced by the perception that either Hispanics or blacks live nearby. The effects of the perception that Hispanics live nearby are consistently stronger than those associated with the perceived proximity of blacks, Analyses for subsamples show that whites are threatened by Hispanics and blacks, but only in South Florida where they are slightly outnumbered by those two groups. Hispanics are also threatened by the presence of blacks and other Hispanics, but only outside of South Florida where they are greatly outnumbered by blacks and whites. The results support a core assumption of the "social threat" perspective, which presumes the mobilization of social control is influenced by the perception of criminal threat associated with the perceived proximity of racial others, These results also suggest that crime threat may be "ethnicity coded" as well as "race coded" and may, in certain contexts, have more effect on those who are in a minority status than on the dominant majority.