Fear of crime in late modernity and how it affects society
In the last two decades, fear of crime has increasingly become a prominent concern of policy-makers across the political spectrum. Mirroring the way that left realist criminology to recaptured the issue of crime after its 'theft' by the Conservatives, fear of crime has come to be perceived as an acute problem by the right as much as the left. At times it has been regarded as equally problematic as crime itself. In 1989, for example, a Home Office Working Party declared that fear of crime was an "issue of social concern that has to be taken as seriously as crime prevention and reduction" (Home Office 1989: ii). Although the Official policy emphasis has now shifted back to prioritising crime reduction, fear of crime remains a prominent concern. The media have consistently been seen by policy-makers as a major source of the problem, stimulating unrealistic and irrational fears by exaggerating and sensationalising the risks and seriousness of crime (Sparks, 1992; Hope and Sparks, 2000).
On the other hand, more than three decades have passed since the emergence of the first studies exploring fear of crime in the United States (Baumer, 1979; Clemente and Kleinman, 1977; Garofalo, 1979). Over time, three main areas have been largely emphasized in the extant research. First, considerable evidence supports the influence of underlying demographic factors and the interactions among social structural correlates on levels of fear.
Generally, findings reveal that fear of crime tends to increase with age, that women express higher levels of fear than men, and that non-Whites are more fearful of crime that Whites (Ferguson and Mindel, 2007). Second, much of the existing work on this topic has treated fear as both an emotional and cognitive response to crime-related stimuli; nonetheless, several more recent studies have sought to differentiate between fear of crime and perceived risk of crime as distinct outcome variables.
Whereas fear of crime refers to one's emotional response to crime-specific incidents, perceived risk of crime connotes one's cognitive assessment of surrounding crime or victimisation risk (Ferraro, 1995; Ferraro & LaGrange, 1987; Rountree & Land, 1996). Finally, previous research has also emphasized the relationship between macro level, community variables and residents' levels of fear (Ferguson and Mindel, 2007). Fear of crime is a concept that captures the importance of individual feelings of personal safety (Furstenburg, 1971) and "refers to the negative emotional reactions generated by crime or symbols associated with crime" (Ferraro and LaGrange, 1987: 73). It is a broad, but useful concept for sociologists who are interested in social organisation of communities and the consequences of crime for neighbourhood life (Skogan, 1990; Woldoff, 2002).
While it is stressful for individuals who live in fear in their communities, fear of crime may negatively impact residents' behaviour, community organization and power, community economic resources, local crime rates, and local population composition and stability. Thus, the concept of fear of crime is relevant to many discourses, such as how to improve community life and reduce crime, identity the fear-related issues that are most detrimental to specific community types, and understand the kinds of partnerships in communities that can best address fear, its causes, and its consequences (Woldoff, 2006). While individual factors such as age, sex (see most recently, sutton and Farrall, 2005) and media representations of crime cultivate a fear of crime (Fisher et al, 2004; Miethe, 1995), researchers and theorists who study community and crime have closely linked it to the ecological theory of social disorganization. Researchers typically apply social disorganization theory to explain the state of a community in which its residents are unable "to realize the common values of its residents and maintain effective social control" (Sampson and Groves, 1989: 775).
Our understanding of fear of crime from existing literature and from an intensive interrogation of interview data has produced a more multi-faceted, less singular notion than the term routinely implies. For a start, fear of crime seems to mean different things to men and to women. Whereas for men it may connote fear of assault, for women it more usually connotes specifically fear of sexual assault (Bannister, 1997). It also means different things dependent on location. Thus, for example, some people may be afraid inside the home, but not outside: either because they never go out or because, being long-term residents and hence known locally, they generally feel safe at any hour walking about in their neighbourhood. Others may feel afraid when outside their home but safe inside, because they have one or more of a number of potentially protective factors, such as a dog or a spouse. Still there is the nature of the emotion involved in fear of crime. The idea that the experience of criminal victimisation produces only fear now seems presumptuous in the light of more recent qualitative work (Hope and Sparks, 2000).
How society is affected
Fear of crime in almost all societies around the world turned into a major social problem itself. Fear of crime interrupt, disorganize and causes moral panic in communities and disrupts neighbourhood peace and unity (Nasar et al., 1993; Liska et al., 1988). Fear of crime breaks the sense of relaxation, togetherness, openness and safety that a community is suppose to be experiencing in other to leave happily and healthy in their neighborhood (Box et al., 1988; Ross and Mirowsky, 2000; Doran, & Burgess, 2012).
Fear of crime breaks down social associations and connection (Spelman, 2004) which in turn leads to social segregation and seclusion (Ross & Mirowsky, 2000). It causes damages to the community as the public image of the victimized community is severely dented by fear and people will be forced to avoid visiting such community due to the behavior that their own neighbors cannot withstand (Warr, 2000; Doran, & Burgess, 2012). "It causes a removal of ‘eyes on the street' and informal natural surveillance (Jacobs, 1961; Painter, 1996; Samuels, Judd, 2002). It is however not surprising to notice a universal string going through these varied severe and sober impacts it has placed on people behaviors and there prevention in relation to their fear of crime" (quoted in Doran & Burgess, 2012 p. 11)
The renowned broken windows hypothesis disorder and decline hypothesis have provided theoretical frameworks which outline possible communications over space and time between crime, disorder and fear. Even though thorough deliberation about the effectiveness of such hypotheses, there is a compromise among much existing research that fear of crime and the connected protective and avoidance behaviors evident at the individual level have the potential to have a collective and detrimental impact at the community level (Doran & Burgess, 2012). Given the weighty importance of secular factors and potential impact in specific areas or neighborhoods, it is also clear that there are opportunities and possibilities for clearly spatial research into the hypothesized links between crime, disorder and fear hypothesis (Wilson and Kelling, 1982) and Skogan's (1986, 1990)
References
Baumer, T.L. (1979). Research on fear of crime in the United States. Victimology, 3(3/4), 254-264.
Box, S., C. Hale, et al. (1988):"Explaining fear of crime". The British Journal of Criminology 37(4): 340–356.
Clemente, F. and Kleinman, M. B. (1977). Fear of crime in the United State: Amultivariate analysis. Social Forces, 56, 519-532.
Doeksen, H. (1997): "Reducing crime and the fear of crime by reclaiming New Zealand's suburban street". Landscape and Urban Planning 39(2–3): 243–252.
Doran, B. J. and Burgess, M.B. (2012): Why Is Fear of Crime a Serious Social Problem? Chapter 2. Putting Fear of Crime on the Map: Investigating Perceptions of Crime Using Geographic Information Systems. ISBN: 978-1-4419-5646-0
Ferguson, K. M. and Mindel, C. H. (2007). Modeling Fear of crime in Dallas Neigborhoods: A Test of Social Capital Theory. Sage Journals, 53(2), 322-347
Ferraro, K. F. (1995). Fear of crime. Interpreting victimisation risk. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Ferraro, K.F., and LaGrange, R. L. (1987). The measurement of fear of crime. Sociological Inquiry, 57, 70-101.
Fishers, S., Allan, A. and Allan, M. (2004). Exploratory study to Examine the Impact of Television Reports of Prison Escapes on fear of crime, Operationalised as state Anxiety. Australian Journal of Psychology. 56(3), 181-190
Furstenburg, F. (1971). Public Reaction to crime in the streets. American Scholar. 40(4), 601-610
Garofalo, J. (1979). Victimisation and the fear of crime. Journal of research in crime and Deliquency, 16(1), 80-97.
Home Office (1989: ii): in Berry, G. and M. Carter "Assessing Crime Prevention Initiatives:
Liska, A. E., A. Sanchirico, et al. (1988): "Fear of crime and constrained behavior specifying and estimating a reciprocal effects model". Social Forces 66(3): 827–838.
Miethe, T.D. (1995). Fear and Withdrawal from Urban Life. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 539, 14-27.
Nasar, J. L., B. Fisher, et al. (1993): "Proximate physical cues to fear of crime". Landscape and Urban Planning 26: 161–178.
Ross, C. E. and J. Mirowsky (2000): "Disorder and decay: the concept and measurement of perceived neighborhood disorder". Urban Affairs Review 34(3): 412–433.
Rountree, P.W., and Land, K.C. (1996). Perceived risk versus fear of crime: Empirical evidence of conceptually distinct reactions in survey data. Social Forces, 74, 1353-1376.
Sampson, R.J. and Groves, W. B. (1989). Community Structure and Crime: Testing Social Disorganisation Theory. American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 94, 774—802
Skogan, W. G. (1986): Fear of crime and neighbourhood change. Communities and crime. A. J. Reiss and M. Tonry (Eds.). University of Chicago press, Chicago, IL: 203–230.
Skogan, W.G. (1990) Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Decay in American Neighborhoods. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sparks, R. (1992): Television and Drama of Crime. Buckingham: Open University Press
Sparks, R. and Hope, T. (2000). Crime, Risk and Insecurity. New York: Routledge.
The First Steps". (Crime Prevention Unit Paper, #31.) London, UK:Home Office.
Warr, M. (2000): "Fear of crime in the United States: avenues for research and policy." Criminal Justice 4: 452–489.
Wilson, J. Q. and G. L. Kelling (1982): "The police and neighborhood safety: broken windows". The Atlantic Monthly: 29–38.
Woldoff, R. A. (2002). The Effect of Local Stressors on Neighborhood Attachment. Social Forces.81(1), 87-116
Woldoff, R. A. (2006). Emphasizing fear of crime in models of neighborhood social disorganisation. Crime prevention and community safety 8(4), 228-229. West Virgina University, Morgantown: Palgrave Macmillan
On the other hand, more than three decades have passed since the emergence of the first studies exploring fear of crime in the United States (Baumer, 1979; Clemente and Kleinman, 1977; Garofalo, 1979). Over time, three main areas have been largely emphasized in the extant research. First, considerable evidence supports the influence of underlying demographic factors and the interactions among social structural correlates on levels of fear.
Generally, findings reveal that fear of crime tends to increase with age, that women express higher levels of fear than men, and that non-Whites are more fearful of crime that Whites (Ferguson and Mindel, 2007). Second, much of the existing work on this topic has treated fear as both an emotional and cognitive response to crime-related stimuli; nonetheless, several more recent studies have sought to differentiate between fear of crime and perceived risk of crime as distinct outcome variables.
Whereas fear of crime refers to one's emotional response to crime-specific incidents, perceived risk of crime connotes one's cognitive assessment of surrounding crime or victimisation risk (Ferraro, 1995; Ferraro & LaGrange, 1987; Rountree & Land, 1996). Finally, previous research has also emphasized the relationship between macro level, community variables and residents' levels of fear (Ferguson and Mindel, 2007). Fear of crime is a concept that captures the importance of individual feelings of personal safety (Furstenburg, 1971) and "refers to the negative emotional reactions generated by crime or symbols associated with crime" (Ferraro and LaGrange, 1987: 73). It is a broad, but useful concept for sociologists who are interested in social organisation of communities and the consequences of crime for neighbourhood life (Skogan, 1990; Woldoff, 2002).
While it is stressful for individuals who live in fear in their communities, fear of crime may negatively impact residents' behaviour, community organization and power, community economic resources, local crime rates, and local population composition and stability. Thus, the concept of fear of crime is relevant to many discourses, such as how to improve community life and reduce crime, identity the fear-related issues that are most detrimental to specific community types, and understand the kinds of partnerships in communities that can best address fear, its causes, and its consequences (Woldoff, 2006). While individual factors such as age, sex (see most recently, sutton and Farrall, 2005) and media representations of crime cultivate a fear of crime (Fisher et al, 2004; Miethe, 1995), researchers and theorists who study community and crime have closely linked it to the ecological theory of social disorganization. Researchers typically apply social disorganization theory to explain the state of a community in which its residents are unable "to realize the common values of its residents and maintain effective social control" (Sampson and Groves, 1989: 775).
Our understanding of fear of crime from existing literature and from an intensive interrogation of interview data has produced a more multi-faceted, less singular notion than the term routinely implies. For a start, fear of crime seems to mean different things to men and to women. Whereas for men it may connote fear of assault, for women it more usually connotes specifically fear of sexual assault (Bannister, 1997). It also means different things dependent on location. Thus, for example, some people may be afraid inside the home, but not outside: either because they never go out or because, being long-term residents and hence known locally, they generally feel safe at any hour walking about in their neighbourhood. Others may feel afraid when outside their home but safe inside, because they have one or more of a number of potentially protective factors, such as a dog or a spouse. Still there is the nature of the emotion involved in fear of crime. The idea that the experience of criminal victimisation produces only fear now seems presumptuous in the light of more recent qualitative work (Hope and Sparks, 2000).
How society is affected
Fear of crime in almost all societies around the world turned into a major social problem itself. Fear of crime interrupt, disorganize and causes moral panic in communities and disrupts neighbourhood peace and unity (Nasar et al., 1993; Liska et al., 1988). Fear of crime breaks the sense of relaxation, togetherness, openness and safety that a community is suppose to be experiencing in other to leave happily and healthy in their neighborhood (Box et al., 1988; Ross and Mirowsky, 2000; Doran, & Burgess, 2012).
Fear of crime breaks down social associations and connection (Spelman, 2004) which in turn leads to social segregation and seclusion (Ross & Mirowsky, 2000). It causes damages to the community as the public image of the victimized community is severely dented by fear and people will be forced to avoid visiting such community due to the behavior that their own neighbors cannot withstand (Warr, 2000; Doran, & Burgess, 2012). "It causes a removal of ‘eyes on the street' and informal natural surveillance (Jacobs, 1961; Painter, 1996; Samuels, Judd, 2002). It is however not surprising to notice a universal string going through these varied severe and sober impacts it has placed on people behaviors and there prevention in relation to their fear of crime" (quoted in Doran & Burgess, 2012 p. 11)
The renowned broken windows hypothesis disorder and decline hypothesis have provided theoretical frameworks which outline possible communications over space and time between crime, disorder and fear. Even though thorough deliberation about the effectiveness of such hypotheses, there is a compromise among much existing research that fear of crime and the connected protective and avoidance behaviors evident at the individual level have the potential to have a collective and detrimental impact at the community level (Doran & Burgess, 2012). Given the weighty importance of secular factors and potential impact in specific areas or neighborhoods, it is also clear that there are opportunities and possibilities for clearly spatial research into the hypothesized links between crime, disorder and fear hypothesis (Wilson and Kelling, 1982) and Skogan's (1986, 1990)
References
Baumer, T.L. (1979). Research on fear of crime in the United States. Victimology, 3(3/4), 254-264.
Box, S., C. Hale, et al. (1988):"Explaining fear of crime". The British Journal of Criminology 37(4): 340–356.
Clemente, F. and Kleinman, M. B. (1977). Fear of crime in the United State: Amultivariate analysis. Social Forces, 56, 519-532.
Doeksen, H. (1997): "Reducing crime and the fear of crime by reclaiming New Zealand's suburban street". Landscape and Urban Planning 39(2–3): 243–252.
Doran, B. J. and Burgess, M.B. (2012): Why Is Fear of Crime a Serious Social Problem? Chapter 2. Putting Fear of Crime on the Map: Investigating Perceptions of Crime Using Geographic Information Systems. ISBN: 978-1-4419-5646-0
Ferguson, K. M. and Mindel, C. H. (2007). Modeling Fear of crime in Dallas Neigborhoods: A Test of Social Capital Theory. Sage Journals, 53(2), 322-347
Ferraro, K. F. (1995). Fear of crime. Interpreting victimisation risk. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Ferraro, K.F., and LaGrange, R. L. (1987). The measurement of fear of crime. Sociological Inquiry, 57, 70-101.
Fishers, S., Allan, A. and Allan, M. (2004). Exploratory study to Examine the Impact of Television Reports of Prison Escapes on fear of crime, Operationalised as state Anxiety. Australian Journal of Psychology. 56(3), 181-190
Furstenburg, F. (1971). Public Reaction to crime in the streets. American Scholar. 40(4), 601-610
Garofalo, J. (1979). Victimisation and the fear of crime. Journal of research in crime and Deliquency, 16(1), 80-97.
Home Office (1989: ii): in Berry, G. and M. Carter "Assessing Crime Prevention Initiatives:
Liska, A. E., A. Sanchirico, et al. (1988): "Fear of crime and constrained behavior specifying and estimating a reciprocal effects model". Social Forces 66(3): 827–838.
Miethe, T.D. (1995). Fear and Withdrawal from Urban Life. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 539, 14-27.
Nasar, J. L., B. Fisher, et al. (1993): "Proximate physical cues to fear of crime". Landscape and Urban Planning 26: 161–178.
Ross, C. E. and J. Mirowsky (2000): "Disorder and decay: the concept and measurement of perceived neighborhood disorder". Urban Affairs Review 34(3): 412–433.
Rountree, P.W., and Land, K.C. (1996). Perceived risk versus fear of crime: Empirical evidence of conceptually distinct reactions in survey data. Social Forces, 74, 1353-1376.
Sampson, R.J. and Groves, W. B. (1989). Community Structure and Crime: Testing Social Disorganisation Theory. American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 94, 774—802
Skogan, W. G. (1986): Fear of crime and neighbourhood change. Communities and crime. A. J. Reiss and M. Tonry (Eds.). University of Chicago press, Chicago, IL: 203–230.
Skogan, W.G. (1990) Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Decay in American Neighborhoods. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sparks, R. (1992): Television and Drama of Crime. Buckingham: Open University Press
Sparks, R. and Hope, T. (2000). Crime, Risk and Insecurity. New York: Routledge.
The First Steps". (Crime Prevention Unit Paper, #31.) London, UK:Home Office.
Warr, M. (2000): "Fear of crime in the United States: avenues for research and policy." Criminal Justice 4: 452–489.
Wilson, J. Q. and G. L. Kelling (1982): "The police and neighborhood safety: broken windows". The Atlantic Monthly: 29–38.
Woldoff, R. A. (2002). The Effect of Local Stressors on Neighborhood Attachment. Social Forces.81(1), 87-116
Woldoff, R. A. (2006). Emphasizing fear of crime in models of neighborhood social disorganisation. Crime prevention and community safety 8(4), 228-229. West Virgina University, Morgantown: Palgrave Macmillan