Victims of the approximately 1 million violent crimes committed in England and Wales every year may experience physical, emotional and financial harm, and feel more fearful and less trusting. But our new research shows the harmful effects of violent crime also reach beyond their victims, and can affect the wellbeing of whole neighbourhoods
In a recent study, we looked at the impact of violent crime – every violent incident against a person that the police were aware of – on the mental wellbeing of those living nearby. Our study looked at incidents of violent crime in neighbourhoods served by Thames Valley Police, one of the UK’s largest forces, as well as self-reported mental wellbeing in those neighbourhoods
Using nearly a decade of data from 2010 to 2017, we linked each reported incident of violent crime to self-reports of mental wellbeing from a smartphone app in the immediate neighbourhood, with data on over 90,000 self-reports in total during the study period
Because multiple self-reports were available for each person, we could remove the influence of individual characteristics, such as some people living more or less stressful lives
We also controlled for day-to-day factors that might affect both crime and stress levels, such as weather, daylight and day of the week. And we controlled for each month of each year, which effectively enabled us to take account of any special events, such as elections or major sporting contests, that might affect crime and stress
This approach allowed us to focus specifically on how a recent incident of violence changes a person’s stress compared to their usual levels
We found that when a violent crime took place in a neighbourhood, it led to significant increases in stress levels among many of the residents. Raised stress levels were worst in the first few days following the incident, but stress remained heightened for around a week
We cannot be certain that every resident was aware of the given crime. However, research suggests people tend to have a high awareness of violent crime in their local area. This happens for a number of reasons, including directly observing the incident, seeing greater police presence or remnants of the incident (such as police tape), as well as local word of mouth and media coverage
Every small neighbourhood in our setting experienced two violent crimes per year, on average (with higher rates in some neighbourhoods and lower in others). Given the frequency of these incidents, we concluded that the average Briton experiences around two weeks of heightened stress each year due to violence in their area
This is largely on top of the harmful effects of violent crime on each direct victim and their friends and family. Our study was not about looking at the impact of crime on these people. Instead, we examined how violent crime in a person’s immediate neighbourhood affected the stress levels of local residents more generally
To better understand who was most affected in neighbourhoods with violent crime incidents, we split our sample to look at effects for women and men, and for those living in urban and rural areas
We found a big gender gap, with women experiencing nearly twice as much stress as men after violent offences took place near their home. This may point to the wider psychological impacts of violence on women’s sense of safety and wellbeing. Similarly, urban residents experienced much larger stress effects than their rural counterparts after an incident of violent crime
Explaining the stress
Why might violent crime increase local people’s stress levels? We speculate that violent crimes close to someone’s home may affect them more because it feels closer to their everyday life
Our study found that violent incidents had the largest mental health effect on people who were at home when they reported their stress levels. For those far away from home at the time, the effects on stress were diminished. This might be explained by the fact that those away on work or vacation were less aware of an incident having taken place, or felt it didn’t affect their daily life
We also found no impact from non-violent crimes on stress. This could be because people were less disturbed by these crimes, or because they were less aware of non-violent crimes
Other studies have found that local violence leads to negative outcomes in many areas of people’s lives, including work and schooling. Researchers often argue these negative effects are due to violence leading to worse mental health, which then translates to lower achievement in school, for example. But it is difficult to test this causally, largely because of limited access to multiple data
As such, our study fills an important evidence gap, directly showing that local violent crime worsens mental health
Although violent crime has fallen substantially over the past few decades in the UK, it remains highly concentrated, with some neighbourhoods experiencing much higher levels of violence than others
The costs to society are immense and go well beyond the victim. Our findings suggest that reducing violent crime throughout the country would have substantial benefits for society, including the potential to improve mental wellbeing across communities
