Fear of crime is more pervasive and harder to address than crime itself and can cause physical and psychological health complications, particularly for women. Fear of crime is not always grounded in direct exposure to crime. Instead, it may be more directly linked to social cohesion and/or perceptions of neighborhood disorder, but little is known about these associations in informal settlements. This paper sought to explore these relationships in Mathare—a large informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. Using responses from surveys with 550 women in Mathare, we conducted regression, mediation, and moderated mediation analyses to investigate relationships between neighborhood disorder, fear of crime, and neighborhood cohesion and explore how these associations vary across geographic spaces (villages). Findings suggest that women’s perceptions of neighborhood disorder are associated with fear of crime; neighborhood cohesion partially mediates the relationship between perceptions of neighborhood disorder and fear of crime; women’s fear of crime varies by village; and the mediating role of neighborhood cohesion also varies by village. Efforts to build and strengthen social cohesion in informal settlements may help to reduce women’s fear of crime, but more research is needed to explore under what conditions and in what spaces interventions are the most effective.

中文翻译：

---

肯尼亚内罗毕非正式定居点的邻里凝聚力、对混乱的认知以及女性对犯罪的恐惧地理

对犯罪的恐惧比犯罪本身更普遍，更难解决，并且可能导致身心健康并发症，尤其是对女性而言。对犯罪的恐惧并不总是基于直接接触犯罪。相反，它可能与社会凝聚力和/或对邻里混乱的看法更直接相关，但对非正式住区中的这些关联知之甚少。本文试图在马萨雷（肯尼亚内罗毕的一个大型非正式定居点）探索这些关系。利用对马萨雷 550 名女性的调查结果，我们进行了回归、调解和适度调解分析，以调查邻里混乱、犯罪恐惧和邻里凝聚力之间的关系，并探索这些关联如何在地理空间（村庄）之间变化。研究结果表明，女性对邻里混乱的看法与对犯罪的恐惧有关；邻里凝聚力在对邻里混乱的感知和对犯罪的恐惧之间的关系中起到了部分中介作用；妇女对犯罪的恐惧因村而异；邻里凝聚力的中介作用也因村而异。努力在非正式住区建立和加强社会凝聚力可能有助于减少女性对犯罪的恐惧，但需要更多的研究来探索在什么条件下和在什么空间干预最有效。