"Assessing The Behavioral Context of Victimization," Journal of Criminal Law and
Criminology,72 (Summer, 1981), 727-742.
One of the greatest shortcomings of victimization research has been the failure to understand the
behavioral context within which crimes occur. The routine activities of citizens are widely viewed as explaining
in part who falls victim to crime. The relatively low rates of victimization reported by the elderly are commonly
attributed to their generally circumspect behavior, which seems to grant them less exposure to risk. People
also vary in the extent to which they take specific precautions, such as installing special locks or alarms, to
avoid falling victim. Those encouraging community crime prevention efforts have acted on the presumption
that these activities yield positive benefits. Yet a close reading of the research on victimization fails to support
most of these assumptions. Most studies of crime-related behavior have been under conceptualized and
have employed inadequate measures, hence have not yielded reliable findings with regard to the personal
significance of what people do.
Criminology,72 (Summer, 1981), 727-742.
One of the greatest shortcomings of victimization research has been the failure to understand the
behavioral context within which crimes occur. The routine activities of citizens are widely viewed as explaining
in part who falls victim to crime. The relatively low rates of victimization reported by the elderly are commonly
attributed to their generally circumspect behavior, which seems to grant them less exposure to risk. People
also vary in the extent to which they take specific precautions, such as installing special locks or alarms, to
avoid falling victim. Those encouraging community crime prevention efforts have acted on the presumption
that these activities yield positive benefits. Yet a close reading of the research on victimization fails to support
most of these assumptions. Most studies of crime-related behavior have been under conceptualized and
have employed inadequate measures, hence have not yielded reliable findings with regard to the personal
significance of what people do.
Using Advance Letters in RDD Surveys: Results of Two Experiments. Survey
Research, Volume 33, 2002, 1-2.
In telephone surveys with list samples, it is common practice to send respondents a letter in advance of
the call to explain the purpose of the study. The assumption is that the advance letters lend legitimacy to the
study and increase the likelihood that the respondent will cooperate. In response to steadily declining
response rates in RDD surveys and refusals that typically come before interviewers are able to explain that
it is a research call, we decided to look at the effect of sending advance letters to households for which an
address could be identified in RDD surveys. In this article, we present the results of two experiments to
assess the effect of advance letters on response rates.
Research, Volume 33, 2002, 1-2.
In telephone surveys with list samples, it is common practice to send respondents a letter in advance of
the call to explain the purpose of the study. The assumption is that the advance letters lend legitimacy to the
study and increase the likelihood that the respondent will cooperate. In response to steadily declining
response rates in RDD surveys and refusals that typically come before interviewers are able to explain that
it is a research call, we decided to look at the effect of sending advance letters to households for which an
address could be identified in RDD surveys. In this article, we present the results of two experiments to
assess the effect of advance letters on response rates.
Measurement Abstracts
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