The literature shows that offenders' subsequent crime location choices are affected by their prior crime location choices. However, the published studies have focused on the influence of time and place of a previous crime, without testing the impact of whether the offender was arrested during the act of the prior crime. On the basis of the literature, this study further examines the influence of the prior robbery experiences on the subsequent street robbery location choices, by testing explicit hypotheses on how the time, place, and being arrested in the act of previous robberies affect a robber's subsequent decisions of where to commit robberies. The data set used in this study includes 1262 detected robberies committed by 527 street robbers from the ZG City Public Security Bureau in China. Results of a mixed logit model demonstrate that prior street robbery experiences have a strong effect on subsequent street robbery location choices. A shorter time interval and less possibility of being arrested in the act of a prior street robbery significantly increase the likelihood of a robber returning to the previous location. However, the impact of distance of journey to prior crime location is not statistically significant.

Previous literature has examined the relationship between the amount of green space and perceived safety in urban areas, but little is known about the effect of street-view neighborhood greenery on perceived neighborhood safety. Using a deep learning approach, we derived greenery from a massive set of street view images in central Guangzhou. We further tested the relationships and mechanisms between street-view greenery and fear of crime in the neighborhood. Results demonstrated that a higher level of neighborhood street-view greenery was associated with a lower fear of crime, and its relationship was mediated by perceived physical incivilities. While increasing street greenery of the micro-environment may reduce fear of crime, this paper also suggests that social factors should be considered when designing ameliorative programs.

Fear of crime can lead to lower satisfaction with life and subjective well-being. The indicators of fear of crime vary from the social and cultural context, and the hukou (household registration) status causes unequal rights between local hukou and non-local hukou residents in China. To improve people’s perception of safety, this study takes hukou as an indicator of social vulnerability and examines the relationship between hukou, perceived neighborhood conditions, and fear of crime in China. A binary logistic regression model was used to analyze the 1727 residents garnered from the 2016 Project on Public Safety in Guangzhou Neighborhoods (PPSGN) in Guangzhou, China. The results show that women, victimization experience, physical and social disorder, and neighborhood policing are associated with residents’ fear of crime. Although hukou status has no statistically significant effect on fear of crime, hukou status significantly moderates the influence of perceived neighborhood conditions on fear of crime. That is, perceived neighborhood conditions’ effects on fear are conditional on one’s hukou status: non-local hukou, perception of the social disorder has more of the detrimental effect on fear, and perception of social integration has less of the helpful effect on fear. In sum, this study adds to the international literature by revealing the conditional effect of the hukou on fear in a Chinese city.

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