Vulnerability and resilience intersections

This chapter examines the concepts of ‘vulnerability’ and ‘resilience’, noting that most research focuses only on an individualised understanding of these terms. What can be known from empirical research is reviewed through the lens of intersectional theory, which accentuates the need for a whole-system approach to afford children greater protection. Just as online child sexual victimisation (OCSV) is not homogenous, neither are children. Their age, gender, race, sexualities, migration status, and class intersect and change over time. Vulnerability and resilience can be time and identity specific. They can also be fluid; a prior victimisation does not necessarily result in vulnerability, and resilience to one form of OCSV may not provide resilience to another. From a child's perspective, OCSV experience holds similarities and important differences in terms of perpetration and consequences, requiring tailored intersectional responses at the appropriate level.

Predicting perceptions of crime: Community residents’ recognition and classification of local crime problems

In the scholarship of crime prevention, little is understood regarding the prompts for individual observation and classification of local crime problems. Moreover, studies that evaluate individuals’ perceptions of crime tend to emphasise the risk of victimisation rather than the probability of crime controller behaviour. In order to predict whether and how a community resident combats neighbourhood crime and disorder, we first require a greater understanding of how individuals recognise and categorise those same neighbourhood phenomena. To explore these processes, the current project uses large-scale multilevel survey data from the Australian Community Capacity Study to test the predictive influence of individual characteristics, local social processes, and suburb features on a resident’s identification and categorisation of minor, moderate, and major neighbourhood crime problems. Results indicate that lived experiences with prior victimisation and interactions with the police, greater frequencies of neighbouring behaviours but lower levels of collective efficacy, socioeconomic disadvantage, and ethnic homogeneity are all associated with a greater likelihood of reporting serious local crime problems.