Document Type
Article
Abstract
Objectives
Examine how offense severity and victim–offender relationship shape intentions to report violence and engage in avoidance behaviors among residents of high-crime neighborhoods.
Methods
A 2×2 factorial survey experiment was embedded in a community survey of 220 adults from nine high-crime St. Louis, MO neighborhoods. Logistic regression models estimated vignette effects on reporting and avoidance intentions.
Results
Firearm presence increased intentions to contact police and community workers and avoid risk. Simple assaults by strangers were more likely to be reported to police than those by acquaintances. Respondents expressed willingness to report to police and family or friends, but not community workers. Findings reveal gendered help-seeking and the significance of police legitimacy.
Conclusions
Results add nuance to discussions of victimization responses and highlight the need for victim services tailored to high-crime contexts. Future research should examine additional reporting, risk-avoidance, and protective responses to better understand how individuals navigate victimization.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Published in Journal of Experimental Criminology, 2026.
Rights
© The Author(s) 2026 This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
APA Citation
Vaughn, P. E., & Vogel, M. (2026). Examining reporting and risk-avoidance intentions among residents of high-crime neighborhoods: results from a city-wide survey experiment. Journal of Experimental Criminology.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-026-09739-3