The findings also suggest that crime is heterogeneous, impacting every individual diversely. For instance, Dustmann et al. acknowledge a research paper by Lagrange and Ferraro, commenting that women and old aged people are affected the most by local area crime. It makes them feel that they can be easily targeted, threatened and terrorized. Thus, they have a higher risk of suffering from mental conditions, such as depression and anxiety. To add to that, people who have children are deeply affected by neighborhood crime and feel unsafe because they have more responsibilities. Nevertheless, some people may be impacted less than others. These...
The findings also suggest that crime is heterogeneous, impacting every individual diversely. For instance, Dustmann et al. acknowledge a research paper by Lagrange and Ferraro, commenting that women and old aged people are affected the most by local area crime. It makes them feel that they can be easily targeted, threatened and terrorized. Thus, they have a higher risk of suffering from mental conditions, such as depression and anxiety. To add to that, people who have children are deeply affected by neighborhood crime and feel unsafe because they have more responsibilities. Nevertheless, some people may be impacted less than others. These are usually individuals who are more educated than others and thus tend to feel less exposed to crime as they have more knowledge and are much more alert.
Moreover, Dustmann et al. argue that the local employment level plays a major role in the mental health of individuals. Concerning the local crime rate on mental health, an increase in 1 standard deviation is the same as one seventh or one-fifth of a fraction of being jobless in the short-run.
Another main result of this article is that the effects of local crime on mental health are observed as being a temporary effect. This implies that although crime impacts an individual initially very strongly, gradually with time the individual can move on. Even though the effect on mental well-being may be temporary and is only short-term, it can still be extremely traumatic and worrying for an individual. Individuals exposed to crime may end up having to visit the doctor or a counselor due to several reasons. They might suffer from insomnia because of stress or may have a worse situation like depending on alcohol and drugs. Even though local area crime is temporary, it can be a consistently occurring situation by which individuals are permanently experiencing crime.
