Community Crime Prevention and Intimate Violence in Chicago, 1995-1998

This study sought to answer the question: If a woman is experiencing intimate partner violence, does the collective efficacy and community capacity of her neighborhood facilitate or erect barriers to her ability to escape violence, other things being equal? To address this question, longitudinal data on a sample of 210 abused women from the CHICAGO WOMEN'S HEALTH RISK STUDY, 1995-1998 (ICPSR 3002) were combined with community context data for each woman's residential neighborhood taken from the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) evaluation, LONGITUDINAL EVALUATION OF CHICAGO'S COMMUNITY POLICING PROGRAM, 1993-2000 (ICPSR 3335). The unit of analysis for the study is the individual abused woman (not the neighborhood). The study takes the point of view of a woman standing at a street address and looking around her. The characteristics of the small geographical area immediately surrounding her residential address form the community context for that woman. Researchers chose the police beat as the best definition of a woman's neighborhood, because it is the smallest Chicago area for which reliable and complete data are available. The characteristics of the woman's police beat then became the community context for each woman. The beat, district, and community area of the woman's address are present. Neighborhood-level variables include voter turnout percentage, organizational involvement, percentage of households on public aid, percentage of housing that was vacant, percentage of housing units owned, percentage of feminine poverty households, assault rate, and drug crime rate. Individual-level demographic variables include the race, ethnicity, age, marital status, income, and level of education of the woman and the abuser. Other individual-level variables include the Social Support Network (SSN) scale, language the interview was conducted in, Harass score, Power and Control score, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosis, other data pertaining to the respondent's emotional and physical health, and changes over the past year. Also included are details about the woman's household, such as whether she was homeless, the number of people living in the household and details about each person, the number of her children or other children in the household, details of any of her children not living in her household, and any changes in the household structure over the past year. Help-seeking in the past year includes whether the woman had sought medical care, had contacted the police, or had sought help from an agency or counselor, and whether she had an order of protection. Several variables reflect whether the woman left or tried to leave the relationship in the past year. Finally, the dataset includes summary variables about violent incidents in the past year (severity, recency, and frequency), and in the follow-up period.

本研究旨在回答以下问题：在其他条件相同的情况下，若女性正经历亲密伴侣暴力（intimate partner violence），其所在社区的集体效能（collective efficacy）与社区能力（community capacity）会促进还是阻碍她逃离暴力的能力？为解答这一问题，研究整合了1995-1998年芝加哥女性健康风险研究（CHICAGO WOMEN'S HEALTH RISK STUDY, 1995-1998，ICPSR 3002）中210名受虐女性样本的纵向数据（longitudinal data），以及来自芝加哥替代警务战略（Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy, CAPS）评估项目——1993-2000年芝加哥社区警务计划纵向评估（LONGITUDINAL EVALUATION OF CHICAGO'S COMMUNITY POLICING PROGRAM, 1993-2000，ICPSR 3335）的每位女性居住社区的情境数据。本研究的分析单位为受虐女性个体（而非社区），采用的视角是站在某一街道地址的女性环顾周边环境的视角：女性居住地址紧邻的小型地理区域特征构成其社区情境。研究者选择警察巡逻区（police beat）作为女性社区的最佳定义，因它是芝加哥可获取可靠且完整数据的最小区域单位，女性所在警察巡逻区的特征遂成为每位女性的社区情境变量，数据中包含其地址对应的巡逻区、辖区及社区区域信息。社区层面变量包括选民投票率、组织参与度、接受公共援助家庭比例、空置住房比例、自有住房单元比例、女性贫困家庭比例、攻击率及毒品犯罪率；个体层面人口统计学变量涵盖女性及其施虐者的种族、族裔、年龄、婚姻状况、收入与教育水平，其他个体层面变量包括社会支持网络（SSN）量表得分、访谈语言、骚扰得分、权力与控制得分、创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）诊断结果、情绪与身体健康相关数据及过去一年的变化情况。此外，数据包含女性家庭的详细信息：是否无家可归、家庭人口数及成员详情、家中子女或其他儿童数量、未同住子女详情及家庭结构变化；过去一年的求助行为包括是否寻求医疗护理、联系警方、向机构或咨询师求助及是否持有保护令；若干变量反映女性是否离开或尝试离开关系；最后，数据集包含过去一年及随访期内暴力事件的总结变量（严重程度、近期性与频率）。