The Double-Edged Sword of Gender Equality

• Author: Heather M. Gerling,William Ash-Houchen,Celia C. Lo
• Date: 01 December 2017
• Published date: 01 December 2017
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567717700492
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article
International Criminal Justice Review
2017, Vol. 27(4) 255-277
The Double-Edged Sword
ª 2017 Georgia State University
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DOI: 10.1177/1057567717700492
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A Cross-National Study
of Crime Victimization
Celia C. Lo1, William Ash-Houchen1,
and Heather M. Gerling1
Abstract
Objectives: While the literature confirms the applicability of routine activity/lifestyle theory in
studying individual crime victimization, this study asks whether neighborhood disorganization as well
as—on the level of the nation—income inequality, attitudes about gender equality, and the meeting
of citizens’ basic human needs are associated with opportunity for crime and so might contribute to
the explanation of victimization. The study measures demographic variables that could indicate the
presence of motivated offenders and likely crime targets, as well as the absence of effective
guardians. Methods: The data come from the sixth wave of the World Values Survey (collected
2010–2014), from the Social Progress Index Report, and from information compiled by the World
Bank. The present sample numbers 64,861 respondents, representing 46 countries. Results: The
data analysis suggests that risk of victimization increases in the presence of income inequality and
gender equality, and decreases where people’s basic human needs are met. The relationship
between neighborhood disorganization and one employed victimization measure was found to be
moderated by attitudes about gender equality. Conclusions: Further investigation of the role of
opportunity and routine activity/lifestyle factors (macro- and individual-level) could improve
understanding of victimization, particularly related to the complex interplay between structural and
cultural predictors of victimization.
Keywords
crime victimization, gender equality, income inequality, cross-national study, lifestyle–routine
activity theory
Victimization by crime typically ends in loss of property, loss of health, and/or loss of personal
dignity—that is, in human suffering. Crime victimization is an important social phenomenon whose
occurrence needs to be explained if it is ever to be prevented by social policy and practices. For
1 Department of Sociology and Social Work, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX, USA
Corresponding Author:
Celia C. Lo, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX 76204, USA.
Email: clo@twu.edu

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International Criminal Justice Review 27(4)
several decades now, scholars working to explain crime victimization have applied routine activity
theory. The theory holds that crime victimization can occur when a situation facilitates a criminal act
or acts (Cohen & Felson, 1979). The presence of motivated offenders and suitable victims, when it is
accompanied by the absence of effectual guardians of intended victims, creates such a potentiality
for victimization (Cohen & Felson, 1979). Certain lifestyles and routinely pursued activities
(vs. other lifestyles and activities) tend to present circumstances conducive to victimization
(Maxfield, 1987). Moreover, certain structural conditions (e.g., poverty, economic inequality) and
cultural conditions (e.g., attitudes toward gender equality) may imply the existence of relatively
more motivation to commit crime depending on the social context (Adamzcyk, 2013; Hindelang,
Gottfredson, & Garofalo, 1978). To understand crime victimization then, we must examine both
victimization and crime-facilitating situations in their broadest contexts (Meier & Miethe, 1993).
The purpose of the present study was to examine roles potentially played by macrolevel structural
and cultural factors as well as mesolevel neighborhood disorganization in individual-level crime
victimization, and whether and to what extent these macro- and mesolevel factors served as both
predictors of victimization for the self as well as victimization of one’s family member(s) in the
context of lifestyles–routine activities theory (LRAT).
Research has captured numerous victimization-related macrolevel constraints and opportunities
characterizing specific structural and cultural conditions by locating factors associated with crime
victimization at the (a) neighborhood or community level (Meier & Miethe, 1993; Sampson, 1987),
(b) city level (Bailey, 1999; DeWees & Parker, 2003), and (c) national level (Gartner, 1990; Lee,
2000). Such multilevel investigation suggests the importance of broad structural and cultural con-
ditions in contextualizing the victimization risk faced by individuals. It is a sociological approach
that perceives crime victimization to be less the consequence of personal choices and more the
outcome of economic and social conditions (Meier & Miethe, 1993). Crime victimization occurs
disproportionately among individuals of lower socioeconomic status residing in economically
deprived areas (Sampson, 1987); however, various contexts enfold crime victimization: the social
grouping, the state, and the nation in which offender and victim live. Explaining crime victimization
by distinct contextual layers is therefore useful, as economic and other disparities in crime victimi-
zation are a social problem worldwide.
Theoretical Foundation and Literature Review
In the 1970s, Cohen and Felson (1979) developed routine activity theory, elaborating how
crime commission is facilitated by the routine activities which create three key conditions: a
victim materializes, no guardians are present to protect the victim, and an offender is present and
motivated to victimize. Since then, routine activity theory has been extended to include differ-
ences and disparities in individual lifestyles; as LRAT, it has become (Maxfield, 1987) a better
tool of explanation. An important distinction between the original theory and LRAT involves
treatment of risk. According to Pratt and Turanovic (2015), lifestyle theory attributes risk to
probability, and routine activity theory describes a different mechanism for predicting victimiza-
tion. Relevant to this mechanism is the understanding that, as stipulated by lifestyle theory, routine
activities—those pertaining to work, family, and leisure activities constituting the individual’s
lifestyle—do not occur in a vacuum. Rather, activities are constrained by structural and cultural
conditions (Hindelang et al., 1978).
In much of the research on victimization, demographic factors have been used to measure LRAT
(Maxfield, 1987). For example, Bunch, Clay-Warner, and Lei (2015) tested gender, income, and
marital status as predictors of individual victimization’s relationship to routine activities, finding
those three factors to be salient. Research has linked age and socioeconomic status to crime victi-
mization as well (McNeeley & Wilcox, 2015; Sampson & Lauritsen, 1994). A study by Lauritsen

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Lo et al.
257
and Carbone-Lopez (2011) suggested marriage protects both spouses against stranger violence,
acknowledging that additional variables, specifically related to neighborhood-level resource depri-
vation, may modify victimization risk.
Victimization indeed does not occur in a social vacuum. Rather, the social networks among
interrelated individuals in a neighborhood or community function to structure the mechanism of
routine activities. The individuals’ interrelationships are not uniform, so among adolescents, for
instance, the likelihood and frequency of unstructured, unsupervised time varies (Bernburg &
Thorlindsson, 2001). Motivated criminal offenders typically come from among those adolescents
with relatively more unstructured, unsupervised hours (Bernburg & Thorlindsson, 2001). Thus, it
appears that researchers must strive to situate victimization within appropriate social contexts.
From ecological crime studies came the key finding that economically disadvantaged neighbor-
hoods tend to have more crime. In Sampson and Groves’ (1989), study of localities in Great Britain,
low economic status, and ethnic heterogeneity were found to foster social disorganization and
subsequent growth of crime. Lauritsen (2001) demonstrated that, across the United States, urban,
low-income groups tended to commit comparatively more crimes. Pabayo, Molnar, and Kawachi
(2014) studied non-Black adolescents in various Boston neighborhoods and observed a link between
income inequality and (a) risk of victimization as well as (b) risk of violent offending. Moreover, at
least one study found homicide rates to be relatively high in neighborhoods where residents’
incomes varied widely, the differential prompting residents to compare others’ economic circum-
stances to their own (Wang & Arnold, 2008).
Socially disorganized neighborhoods often house motivated offenders who themselves have been
victimized, due (in part, at least) to the high-risk lifestyles they lead. Vecchio’s qualitative research
(2013) demonstrated that, following their own victimization, drug dealers and others who regularly
pursue illegal activity tend to accept the risks inherent in their lifestyles, although their postvicti-
mization behavioral changes vary, tending to reflect the severity of the victimization they experi-
enced. Research done in the United States by Daday, Broidy, Crandall, and Sklar (2005) on
nonlethal cases of battery found that perpetrators and victims typically have relationships that are
confined in space; however, each party usually comes from a socially disorganized neighborhood,
and each party exhibits a risky lifestyle.
But even...