Predicting Immigrants’ Fear of Crime Based on Ethnicity, Acculturation, and Coping

• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Author: Keren Cohen-Louck
• DOI: 10.1177/2153368719865965
• Date: 01 January 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Predicting Immigrants’

Fear of Crime Based on

Ethnicity, Acculturation,

and Coping

Keren Cohen-Louck

1

Abstract

This research focuses on fear of crime and acculturation strategies in two immigrant

groups in Israel: Ethiopians and those from the former Soviet Union (FSU). Relative

contributions of various individual and social factors that predict fear of crime were

examined. Five hundred and fourteen immigrants were interviewed, half from each

group. All participants completed questionnaires on their fear of crime levels, per-

ceived neighborhood disorder, social integration, coping styles, acculturation strate-

gies, and prior criminal victimization. Both Ethiopian (M¼4.44) and FSU (M¼4.20)

immigrants preferred integration to other acculturation strategies (p< .05). However,

for Ethiopian immigrants, their high integration scores coexist with separation from

Israeli society. There were no significant differences between the two groups of

immigrants as for fear of crime. Several explanations for these findings are discussed.

These results challenge notions of a single acculturation strategy. Ethiopian immigrants

show a pattern of “cultural ambivalence” where both integration and separation are

used, while FSU immigrants demonstrate patterns of “cultural modularity,” where

integration and assimilation strategies coexist.

Keywords

immigrants, ethnicity, acculturation, fear of crime, coping.

The worldwide rapid growth in legal and illegal immigration requires researchers to

focus on factors associated with their integration and adjustment (Organization for

Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2017). One of these factors is the

1

Department of Criminology, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel

Corresponding Author:

Keren Cohen-Louck, Department of Criminology, Ariel University, Ariel 40700, Israel.

Email: keren.cohenlouck@gmail.com

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DOI: 10.1177/2153368719865965

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fear of falling victim to crime (Wu & Wen, 2014). Fear of crime which can be defined

as a sense of danger and threat of personal and property crimes (Cook & Fox, 2011) is

considered a significant social problem (Franklin, Franklin, & Fearn, 2008) because it

tends to negatively affect the individual’s well-being (e.g., Sulemana, 2015) and

quality of life (Stafford, Chandola, & Marmot, 2007).

The link between immigrants and fear of crime has been studied, showing that

immigrants tend to report higher levels of fear of crime compared to the host society

(Wu, Klahm, & Atoui, 2017). However, research on fear of crime among immigrants

is sparse (Liu & Polson, 2016; Wu & Wen, 2014). Additionally, there is a lack of

research on fear of crime differences between identifiable groups of immigrants and

the connection between the acculturation strategies used by these groups and fear of

crime. This study aims to cover this shortcoming and investigate the association

between immigrants’ fear of crime, ethnic affiliation, and acculturation strategy to

broaden our knowledge and understanding as to whether different ethnic groups

coming from different nations and cultures who experience differently the difficulties

of acclimation to the host country also experience fear of crime differently. This

research can help in forming better policy-making and practices responsible for

immigrant welfare, adjustment, and social integration. For this purpose, two Israeli

immigrant groups were selected as case studies: immigrants from the former Soviet

Union (FSU) and from Ethiopia. These two groups come from different cultures, and

they experienced differently their acclimation to Israeli society.

Literature Review

Fear of crime. Research into fear of crime on the individual level addresses such

characteristics as gender, age, prior victimization, and racial/ethnic affiliation

(Shechory-Bitton & Cohen-Louck, 2017, 2018; Vilalta, 2011). Women (May, Rader,

& Goodrum, 2010) and the elderly (Ceccato & Bamzar, 2016) report stronger fear of

crime than men and young people. These findings suggest a fear–victimization par-

adox since the chances of victimization are lower for women and the elderly than for

men and young people (Fattah & Sacco, 2012). As for prior victimization, studies

show that both direct (Ru

¨hs, Greve, & Kappes, 2017) and vicarious victimization

(Drakulich, 2015) are positively linked to fear of crime.

The relationship between race/ethnicity and fear of crime is less clear. The com-

parison between African Americans and Whites indicates that African Americans

report higher fear of crime levels (Boateng & Adjekum-Boateng, 2017; Randa &

Mitchell, 2018). Liu and Polson (2016) found that Latinos expressed higher fear of

crime than African Americans and other ethnic groups. Conversely, Lane and Meeker

(2004), who focused on fear of gangs, found that Vietnamese in the United States

report higher fear of crime than Whites and Latinos. Thus, it appears that the results

depend inter alia on the type of racial/ethnic comparison (e.g., Whites vs. African

American, Whites vs. Latinos) and specific (e.g., fear of gangs) versus general fears of

crime (Collins, 2016).

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