Community Resilience: Proposal of a Scaleand its Relationship with Criminal Violence Indicators

Abstract

Objective.
The aims of this paper were to both validate a short Community Resilience Scale (CR) and to explore
relationships between resilience and collective efficacy and criminal violence indicators.
Method.
A non-
randomized sample (
n
= 965) was taken of students from technical programs and universities, who answered a
scales pool on CR, collective efficacy, victimization perceived probability and background variables.
Results
.
Results showed that the CR scale had high internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.87), with two factors:
communal coping and collective self-esteem. Victimization experiences were associated with both higher
communal coping and lower collective self-esteem, and CR and collective efficacy were directly associated.
In a macro level analysis, more homicides, kidnappings, and car thefts were associated with lower collective
self-esteem level.
Conclusion.
CR Scales show high internal reliability, convergent validity with victimization
and collective efficacy indicators and ecological validity with objective crime indicators.