Confirmatory factor analysis of an inventory of perception of insecurity and fear of crime

Abstract

This paper focuses on the study of the factorial structure of an inventory to estimate the subjective perception of insecurity and fear of crime. Made from the review of the literature on the subject and the results obtained in previous works, this factor structure shows that this attitude towards insecurity and fear of crime is identified through a number of latent factors which are schematically summarized in (a) personal safety, (b) the perception of personal and social control, (c) the presence of threatening people or situations, (d) the processes of identity and space appropriation, (e) satisfaction with the environment, and (f) the environmental and the use of space. Such factors are relevant dimensions to analyze the phenomenon. Method: A sample of 571 participants in a neighborhood of Barcelona was evaluated with the proposed inventory, which yielded data from the distributions of all the items provided. The administration was conducted by researchers specially trained for it and the results were analyzed by using standard procedures in the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) from the hypothesized theoretical structure. The analysis was performed by decatypes according to the different response scales prepared in the inventory and their ordinal nature, and by estimating the polychoric correlation coefficients. The results show an acceptable fit of the proposed model, an appropriate behavior of the residuals and statistically significant estimates of the factor loadings. This would indicate the goodness of the proposed factor structure.