Stodolska and her colleagues conducted qualitative interviews with 25 Mexican-American adolescents ages 11 to 18 in Chicago, Illinois, to investigate how fear of crime impacted their physical recreation and outdoor activity. Past research on recreation in racial and ethnic minorities has correlated high crime rates with less physical activity in teens due to concerns about safety while playing or traveling to and from sports. These barriers, which also impact adults by causing them to walk less or discourage their children from playing indoors, can eventually lead to increased obesity rates and associated health problems. This study aimed to learn more about how different age groups in a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood with high rates of violent crime perceive crime, and how they may negotiate their own safety, with the aim of developing strategies to increase physical activity and outdoor recreation in adolescents.
The authors found that youth were less likely to go to parks or other places that might require crossing gang lines, and that their fear of crime limited the amount of outdoor recreation they took part in. For example, one youth commented that he did not play sports at school because it would require him to walk home at night across a gang boundary. Fear of crime was greater among older youth, and while older male youth most feared random crimes like drive-by shootings, older females were most worried about sexual assault. Areas that students felt were safer were homes and schools visited during the day where there was more adult supervision. Notably, students thought that parks were generally unsafe, and older students thought that indoor activities were often safer than outdoor ones. At the same time, however, the teens interviewed actively worked around these barriers to pursue physical activity, and used strategies to increase their own safety like vigilance, keeping the company of others, and avoiding walking on unsafe streets at night.
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