Gender, Racial Threat, and Perceived Risk in an Urban University Setting

• Published date: 01 August 2020
• Date: 01 August 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0022427820902833
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Gender, Racial

Threat, and

Perceived Risk

in an Urban

University Setting

Shannon K. Jacobsen

1

, Jody Miller

2

,

and Ntasha Bhardwaj

2

Abstract

Objectives: We provide new insights about the role of gender, race, and

place in perceived risk and fear of crime and discuss the possible boundaries

of the shadow of sexual assault thesis, which attributes women’s higher

levels of fear to their underlying fear of rape across a variety of ecological

contexts. Method: Analyses are base d on data from in-depth qual itative

interviews with 34 undergraduates attending a diverse urban university in

a highly disadvantaged community in the northeast. Purposive and theore-

tical sampling strategies were used, and thematic saturation was achieved.

Results: We find striking gender similarities in students’ perceptions of risk

and fear of crime in this particular context. Specifically, both women and

men drew on their perceptions of disorder in the community when defining

the threat of victimization, which they believed was robbery committed by

the city’s African American male residents. Conclusions: The gendered

1

Department of Criminology & Justice Studies, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

2

School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA

Corresponding Author:

Shannon K. Jacobsen, Department of Criminology & Justice Studies, Drexel University, 3141

Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.

Email: shannon.k.jacobsen@drexel.edu

Journal of Research in Crime and

Delinquency

2020, Vol. 57(5) 612-639

ªThe Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0022427820902833

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shadow of sexual assault was surprisingly absent from students’ discussions,

suggesting that it may not be as universal across context as previous

research suggests. We argue that microlevel contexts and methodological

factors may shape the shadow’s presence, nature, and strength in gendered

fear and perceived risk.

Keywords

gender, fear of crime, shadow of sexual assault, perceived risk, racial threat

The consistent finding that women are more fearful of crime than men has

led to its acceptance as a near truism in criminology (Ferraro 1996; Rader

2004; Warr 1985). Indeed, numerous studies have found that gender is the

strongest predictor of fear and is strongly correlated with perceived risk

(Ferraro 1995). The shadow of sexual assault is an often-cited explanation:

For women, rape is “perceptually contemporaneous” with other offenses,

such that “fear of crime is fear of rape” (Warr 1984:700). Importantly, this

thesis is typically presumed to hold true for women across ecological and

social contexts.

In addition to examining the influence of gender, scholars have investi-

gated the ways in which fear and perceived risk are ecologically patterned.

Research focused on individuals living in distressed urban communities

provides evidence that perceived risk is shaped by personal and vicarious

experiences with crime, visible disorder, and the perception that law

enforcement is ineffective (Bursik and Grasmick 1993; Carvalho and Lewis

2003; Cobbina, Miller, and Brunson 2008; LaGrange, Ferraro, and

Supancic 1992). Other studies reveal that perceptions of risk are heightened

by the presence and visibility of Af rican Americans through stereo type

amplification which does not reflect actual crime risks (Chiricos, McEntire,

and Gertz 2001; Quillian and Pager 2001, 2010). Specifically, Bonam,

Bergsieker, and Eberhardt (2016:1578) find that African Americans and

the spaces they occupy are stereotyped as dangerous and poor, mainly

because “negative characteristics of Black spaces that may appear normal

and natural have been constructed by decades of policies and practices

separating Black people from society and depriving them of basic

resources.”

We draw on in-depth interviews with women and men attending a uni-

versity in a highly distressed, largely African American urban community

in the northeast to examine these related inquiries, regarding if and how

Jacobsen et al. 613