This study was conducted in 1979 at the Social Science Research Institute, University of Southern California, and explores the relationship between neighborhood change and crime rates between the years 1950 and 1976. The data were aggregated by unique and consistently-defined spatial areas, referred to as dummy tracts or neighborhoods, within Los Angeles County. By combining United States Census data and administrative data from several state, county, and local agencies, the researchers were able to develop measures that tapped the changing structural and compositional aspects of each neighborhood and their interaction with the patterns of juvenile delinquency. Some of the variables included are annual income, home environment, number of crimes against persons, and number of property crimes.

The Urban Institute undertook a comprehensive assessment of communities approaching decay to provide public officials with strategies for identifying communities in the early stages of decay and intervening effectively to prevent continued deterioration and crime. Although community decline is a dynamic spiral downward in which the physical condition of the neighborhood, adherence to laws and conventional behavioral norms, and economic resources worsen, the question of whether decay fosters or signals increasing risk of crime, or crime fosters decay (as investors and residents flee as reactions to crime), or both, is not easily answered. Using specific indicators to identify future trends, predictor models for Washington, DC, and Cleveland were prepared, based on data available for each city. The models were designed to predict whether a census tract should be identified as at risk for very high crime and were tested using logistic regression. The classification of a tract as a "very high crime" tract was based on its crime rate compared to crime rates for other tracts in the same city. To control for differences in population and to facilitate cross-tract comparisons, counts of crime incidents and other events were converted to rates per 1,000 residents. Tracts with less than 100 residents were considered nonresidential or institutional and were deleted from the analysis. Washington, DC, variables include rates for arson and drug sales or possession, percentage of lots zoned for commercial use, percentage of housing occupied by owners, scale of family poverty, presence of public housing units for 1980, 1983, and 1988, and rates for aggravated assaults, auto thefts, burglaries, homicides, rapes, and robberies for 1980, 1983, 1988, and 1990. Cleveland variables include rates for auto thefts, burglaries, homicides, rapes, robberies, drug sales or possession, and delinquency filings in juvenile court, and scale of family poverty for 1980 through 1989. Rates for aggravated assaults are provided for 1986 through 1989 and rates for arson are provided for 1983 through 1988.

This research project was designed to demonstrate the contributions that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial analysis procedures can make to the study of crime patterns in a largely nonmetropolitan region of the United States. The project examined the extent to which the relationship between various structural factors and crime varied across metropolitan and nonmetropolitan locations in Appalachia over time. To investigate the spatial patterns of crime, a georeferenced dataset was compiled at the county level for each of the 399 counties comprising the Appalachian region. The data came from numerous secondary data sources, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports, the Decennial Census of the United States, the Department of Agriculture, and the Appalachian Regional Commission. Data were gathered on the demographic distribution, change, and composition of each county, as well as other socioeconomic indicators. The dependent variables were index crime rates derived from the Uniform Crime Reports, with separate variables for violent and property crimes. These data were integrated into a GIS database in order to enhance the research with respect to: (1) data integration and visualization, (2) exploratory spatial analysis, and (3) confirmatory spatial analysis and statistical modeling. Part 1 contains variables for Appalachian subregions, Beale county codes, distress codes, number of families and households, population size, racial and age composition of population, dependency ratio, population growth, number of births and deaths, net migration, education, household composition, median family income, male and female employment status, and mobility. Part 2 variables include county identifiers plus numbers of total index crimes, violent index crimes, property index crimes, homicides, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, larcenies, and motor vehicle thefts annually from 1977 to 1996.

This study explores the relationship between crime and neighborhood deterioration in eight neighborhoods in Chicago. The neighborhoods were selected on the basis of slowly or rapidly appreciating real estate values, stable or changing racial composition, and high or low crime rates. These data provide the results of a telephone survey administered to approximately 400 heads of households in each study neighborhood, a total of 3,310 completed interviews. The survey was designed to measure victimization experience, fear and perceptions of crime, protective measures taken, attitudes toward neighborhood quality and resources, attitudes toward the neighborhood as an investment, and density of community involvement. Each record includes appearance ratings for the block of the respondent's residence and aggregate figures on personal and property victimization for that city block. The aggregate appearance ratings were compiled from windshield surveys taken by trained personnel of the National Opinion Research Center. The criminal victimization figures came from Chicago City Police files.

This data collection contains responses to victimization surveys that were administered as part of both the planning and evaluation stages of the Hartford Project, a crime opportunity reduction program implemented in a residential neighborhood in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1976. The Hartford Project was an experiment in how to reduce residential burglary and street robbery/purse snatching and the fear of those crimes. Funded through the Hartford Institute of Criminal and Social Justice, the project began in 1973. It was based on a new "environmental" approach to crime prevention: a comprehensive and integrative view addressing not only the relationship among citizens, police, and offenders, but also the effect of the physical environment on their attitudes and behavior. The surveys were administered by the Center for Survey Research at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. The Center collected Hartford resident survey data in five different years: 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, and 1979. The 1973 survey provided basic data for problem analysis and planning. These data were updated twice: in 1975 to gather baseline data for the time of program implementation, and in the spring of 1976 with a survey of households in one targeted neighborhood of Hartford to provide data for the time of implementation of physical changes there. Program evaluation surveys were carried out in the spring of 1977 and two years later in 1979. The procedures for each survey were essentially identical each year in order to ensure comparability across time. The one exception was the 1976 sample, which was not independent of the one taken in 1975. In each survey except 1979, respondents reported on experiences during the preceding 12-month period. In 1979 the time reference was the past two years. The survey questions were very similar from year to year, with 1973 being the most unique. All surveys focused on victimization, fear, and perceived risk of being victims of the target crimes. Other questions explored perceptions of and attitudes toward police, neighborhood problems, and neighbors. The surveys also included questions on household and respondent characteristics.