A crime drop for whom? Conceptualising and measuring change in victimization inequality

Citation

Matthews B & McVie S (2024) A crime drop for whom? Conceptualising and measuring change in victimization inequality. In: Farrall S & McVie S (eds.) Handbook on Crime and Inequality. Elgar Handbooks on Inequality. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/handbook-on-crime-and-inequality-9781800883598.html

Abstract
Sustained reductions in crime over the past few decades across Western Europe and other parts of the world have led researchers to examine whether this has impacted on patterns of victimization inequality. However, conceptualizing exactly what victimization inequality is and how it can best be measured is a challenging task. Researchers tend to use the term inequality to describe what are, in practice, very different approaches to understanding and documenting different aspects of victimization. In this chapter we provide an overview of the ways in which researchers have examined changing victimization inequality over the course of the crime drop. In doing so we articulate some conceptual distinctions in the literature which have not previously been explicitly addressed, highlight the impact of definitional choices on our understanding of changing victimization inequalities, and reflect on the impact of analytical methods and survey designs on the effectiveness of measuring inequalities in victimization. We hope this chapter offers a set of principles by which others can make sense of the existing literature, and may use to guide them in future studies of this, or other, aspects of crime and inequality.

Notes
Will be available open access after 12 months of publication. Please do not make the chapter PDF available until then.