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Criminal Victimization and the Quality of Life

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Essays on the Quality of Life

Part of the book series: Social Indicators Research Series ((SINS,volume 19))

Abstract

The aim of this investigation was to explain the impact of crime-related issues on satisfaction with the quality of life, satisfaction with life as a whole and happiness in the city of Prince George, British Columbia. As explanatory variables, we had measures of respondent fears of and actual cases of victimization, Indexes of Neighbourhood Problems, Police Performance, Neighbourhood Worries, Defensive Behaviour, beliefs about increases in local crime, satisfaction with personal and family safety, and satisfaction with a variety of domains of life (e.g., friendships, financial security, health). Collectively such variables could explain only 5% of the variation in happiness scores, 7% of the variation in life satisfaction scores and 9% of the variation in satisfaction with the quality of life scores. However, they could explain 38% of the variation in overall neighbourhood satisfaction scores. When measures of satisfaction with family life, health, self-esteem, etc. were added, we found that crime related issues were simply displaced by the other measures and that we could explain 31 % of the variation in overall happiness scores, 58% of the variation in life satisfaction scores and 59% of the variation in satisfaction with the overall quality of life scores. We conclude, therefore, that crime-related issues have relatively little impact on people’s satisfaction with the quality of their lives, with life satisfaction or happiness here.

The authors would like to express their appreciation to Toni Fletcher, Joanne Matthews, Gordon Molendyck, Shelley Rennick, Wayne Roberts and John Shultis for the help they gave us in the development, administration, analysis and reporting of the survey.

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  1. Bruno D. Zumbo
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© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Zumbo, B.D. (2003). Criminal Victimization and the Quality of Life. In: Essays on the Quality of Life. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0389-5_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0389-5_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6304-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-0389-5

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