Fear of crime

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The fear of crime refers to the fear of being a victim of crime, which is not necessarily reflective of the actual probability of being a victim of crime. [1]

Contents

History

Since the late 1960s, the study of fear of crime had grown considerably. [2]

Contributing factors

While fear of crime can be differentiated[ verification needed ] into public feelings, thoughts and behaviors about the personal risk of criminal victimization, distinctions can also be made between the tendency to see situations as fearful, the actual experience while in those situations, and broader expressions about the cultural and social significance of crime and symbols of crime in people's neighborhoods and in their daily, symbolic lives. [3] [4] Factors influencing the fear of crime include the psychology of risk perception, [5] [6] circulating representations of the risk of victimization (chiefly via interpersonal communication and the mass media), public perceptions of neighborhood stability and breakdown, [7] [8] the influence of neighbourhood context, [9] [10] [11] and broader factors where anxieties about crime express anxieties about the pace and direction of social change. [12] [13] There are also some wider cultural influences. For example, some have argued that modern times have left people especially sensitive to issues of safety and insecurity. [14] [2] [15] [16]

While people may feel angry and outraged about the extent and prospect of crime, surveys typically[ verification needed ] ask people "who they are afraid of" and "how worried they are". Underlying the answers that people give are (more often than not) two dimensions of 'fear': (a) those everyday moments of worry that transpire when one feels personally threatened; and (b) some more diffuse or 'ambient' anxiety about risk. While standard measures of worry about crime regularly show between 30% and 50% of the population of England and Wales express some kind of worry about falling victim, probing reveals that few individuals actually worry for their own safety on an everyday basis. [17] [18] One thus can distinguish between fear (an emotion, a feeling of alarm or dread caused by an awareness or expectation of danger) and some broader anxiety. [19] [20] Some people may be more willing to admit their worries and vulnerabilities than others. [21]

People who feel especially vulnerable to victimization are more report feeling that they are less likely to be able to defend themselves, they have low self-efficacy, they believe the consequences would be more significant than those with lower fear of crime, and they report feeling more likely to be a target of crime. [22] Warr argued in 1987 that 'sensitivity to risk' is not the same for all crimes and can vary dramatically from crime to crime depending on the perceived seriousness of a crime. [23]

First and second-hand experiences

Hearing about events and knowing others who have been victimised are thought to raise perceptions of the risk of victimisation. [7] [24] [25] [26] This has been described as a 'crime multiplier', or processes operating in the residential environment that would 'spread' the impacts of criminal events. [27] Such evidence exists that hearing of friends' or neighbours' victimisation increases anxiety that indirect experiences of crime may play a stronger role in anxieties about victimisation than direct experience.[ citation needed ] However, Skogan (1986) cautions: '… many residents of a neighbourhood only know of [crime] indirectly via channels that may inflate, deflate, or garble the picture.' [28]

Perceptions of a community

Perhaps the biggest influence[ verification needed ] on fear of crime is public concern about neighbourhood disorder, social cohesion and collective efficacy. [29] [9] The incidence and risk of crime has become linked with perceived problems of social stability, moral consensus, and the collective informal control processes that underpin the social order of a neighborhood. [30] Such 'day-to-day' issues ('young people hanging around', 'poor community spirit', 'low levels of trust and cohesion') produce information about risk and generate a sense of unease, insecurity and distrust in the environment (incivilities signal a lack of conventional courtesies and low-level social order in public places). [31] [32] [33] Moreover, many people express through their fear of crime some broader concerns about neighbourhood breakdown, the loss of moral authority, and the crumbling of civility and social capital. [13] [34] [35]

People can come to different conclusions about the same social and physical environment: two individuals who live next door to each other and share the same neighbourhood can view local disorder quite differently. [36] [37] Some research out of the UK has suggested that broader social anxieties about the pace and direction of social change may shift levels of tolerance to ambiguous stimuli in the environment. [4] Individuals who hold more authoritarian views about law and order, and who are especially concerned about a long-term deterioration of community, may be more likely to perceive disorder in their environment (net of the actual conditions of that environment). They may also be more likely to link these physical cues to problems of social cohesion and consensus, of declining quality of social bonds and informal social control. [34] :5

Media

Full front pages of Japanese newspapers about a crime that left 3 injured Black news day (14390694137).jpg
Full front pages of Japanese newspapers about a crime that left 3 injured

Public perceptions of the risk of crime are, in part, shaped by mass media coverage. Individuals pick up from media and interpersonal communication circulating images of the criminal event - the perpetrators, victims, motive, and representations of consequential, uncontrollable, and sensational crimes. The notion of 'stimulus similarity' may be key: if the reader of a newspaper identifies with the described victim, or feels that their own neighbourhood bears resemblance to the one described, then the image of risk may be taken up, personalised and translated into personal safety concerns. [38]

Yet the relationship between fear of crime and mass media lacks consensus in its causal ordering. Do people fear crime because a lot of crime is being shown on television, or does television just provide footage about crimes because people fear crime and want to see what's going on? [39] [ page needed ] A number of studies suggest that the media selectively covers crime, distorting the perception of the everyday world of crime. [40] :4 Some scholars suggest the fear of crime is a more serious threat than crime itself. [40] :3 Some scholars suggest the media contributes to the climate of fear that is created, because the actual frequency of victimisation is a tiny fraction of potential crime. [2]

Robert Reiner found crime series remained stable at around 25% of fictional TV series in Britain from 1955-1991, while news coverage increased. [41] :206 Clive Emsley suggested newspapers discussed violent crime disproportionately due to its profitable qualities compared to minor crimes and financial crimes. [42] :61-62[ citation needed ]

Relationship to crime rates

While fear of crime tends to rise with rising crime rates, the fear of crime tends not to fall as quickly when crime rates fall. [27] Taylor and Hale also argue that crime rates may be significantly different in neighborhoods with similar levels of fear about crime. [27]

Impacts

Feelings, thoughts and behaviors can have a number of functional and dysfunctional effects on individual and group life, depending on actual risk and people's subjective approaches to danger. On a negative side, they can erode public health and psychological well-being; they can alter routine activities and habits; they can contribute to some places turning into 'no-go' areas via a withdrawal from community; and they can drain community cohesion, trust and neighborhood stability. [1] [43] [44] [ verification needed ] Some degree of emotional response can be healthy: psychologists have long highlighted the fact that some degree of worry can be a problem-solving activity, motivating care and precaution, [45] [ verification needed ] underlining the distinction between low-level anxieties that motivate caution and counter-productive worries that damage well-being. [46] [ verification needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anxiety</span> Unpleasant state of inner turmoil over anticipated events

Anxiety is an emotion which is characterised by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different from fear in that fear is defined as the emotional response to a present threat, whereas anxiety is the anticipation of a future one. It is often accompanied by nervous behavior such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints, and rumination.

In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term crime does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition, though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. The most popular view is that crime is a category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. One proposed definition is that a crime or offence is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society, or the state. Such acts are forbidden and punishable by law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victimology</span> Study of victimization

Victimology is the study of victimization, including the psychological effects on victims, the relationship between victims and offenders, the interactions between victims and the criminal justice system—that is, the police and courts, and corrections officials—and the connections between victims and other social groups and institutions, such as the media, businesses, and social movements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broken windows theory</span> Criminological theory

In criminology, the broken windows theory states that visible signs of crime, antisocial behavior, and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes. The theory suggests that policing methods that target minor crimes such as vandalism, loitering, public drinking and fare evasion help to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness.

Crime statistics refer to systematic, quantitative results about crime, as opposed to crime news or anecdotes. Notably, crime statistics can be the result of two rather different processes:

Sex differences in crime are differences between men and women as the perpetrators or victims of crime. Such studies may belong to fields such as criminology, sociobiology, or feminist studies. Despite the difficulty of interpreting them, crime statistics may provide a way to investigate such a relationship from a gender differences perspective. An observable difference in crime rates between men and women might be due to social and cultural factors, crimes going unreported, or to biological factors for example, testosterone or sociobiological theories). The nature or motive of the crime itself may also require consideration as a factor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental criminology</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Left realism</span>

Left realism emerged in criminology from critical criminology as a reaction against what was perceived to be the left's failure to take a practical interest in everyday crime, allowing right realism to monopolize the political agenda on law and order. Left realism argues that crime disproportionately affects working-class people, but that solutions that only increase repression serve to make the crime problem worse. Instead they argue that the root causes of crime lie in relative deprivation, although preventive measures and policing are necessary, but these should be democratically controlled.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Worry</span> Thoughts, images, emotions, and actions of a pessimistic nature

Worry refers to the thoughts, images, emotions, and actions of a negative nature in a repetitive, uncontrollable manner that results from a proactive cognitive risk analysis made to avoid or solve anticipated potential threats and their potential consequences.

A victim study is a survey, such as the British Crime Survey, that asks a sample of people which crimes have been committed against them over a fixed period of time and whether or not they have been reported to the police. Victim studies may be carried out at a national or local level.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Routine activity theory</span> Theory in criminology

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Victimisation is the state or process of being victimised or becoming a victim. The field that studies the process, rates, incidence, effects, and prevalence of victimisation is called victimology.

Victimization refers to a person being made into a victim by someone else and can take on psychological as well as physical forms, both of which are damaging to victims. Forms of victimization include bullying or peer victimization, physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, robbery, and assault. Some of these forms of victimization are commonly associated with certain populations, but they can happen to others as well. For example, bullying or peer victimization is most commonly studied in children and adolescents but also takes place between adults. Although anyone may be victimized, particular groups may be more susceptible to certain types of victimization and as a result to the symptoms and consequences that follow. Individuals respond to victimization in a wide variety of ways, so noticeable symptoms of victimization will vary from person to person. These symptoms may take on several different forms, be associated with specific forms of victimization, and be moderated by individual characteristics of the victim and/or experiences after victimization.

Disability hate crime is a form of hate crime involving the use of violence against people with disabilities. This is not only violence in a physical sense, but also includes other hostile acts, such as the repeated blocking of disabled access and verbal abuse. These hate crimes are associated with prejudice against a disability, or a denial of equal rights for disabled people. It is viewed politically as an extreme form of ableism, or disablism. This phenomenon can take many forms, from verbal abuse and intimidatory behaviour to vandalism, assault, or even murder. Although data are limited studies appear to show that verbal abuse and harassment are the most common. Disability hate crimes may take the form of one-off incidents, or may represent systematic abuse which continues over periods of weeks, months, or even years. Disabled parking places, wheelchair access areas and other facilities are frequently a locus for disability hate. Instead of seeing access areas as essential for equity, they are seen instead as 'special treatment', unjustifiable by status, and so a 'reason' for acting aggressively. Denial of access thus demonstrates a prejudice against equal rights for disabled people; such actions risk actual bodily harm as well as limiting personal freedom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criminology</span> Study of crime and criminal actions/behavior

Criminology is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences, which draws primarily upon the research of sociologists, political scientists, economists, legal sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, social workers, biologists, social anthropologists, scholars of law and jurisprudence, as well as the processes that define administration of justice and the criminal justice system.

Crime contagion models relate to the idea, of whether crime is contagious. Contagion models predict a positive relationship between neighborhood violent crime rates and the propensity of moving to opportunity (MTO) participants to engage in violent crime. The notion of crime spreading across surrounding environments feeds on the idea of clinical hysteria. Hysteria and the fear of crime are the main components of the contagion model.

Although fear of crime is a concern for people of all genders, studies consistently find that women around the world tend to have much higher levels of fear of crime than men, despite the fact that in many places, and for most offenses, men's actual victimization rates are higher. Fear of crime is related to a perceived risk of victimization, but is not the same; fear of crime may be generalized instead of referring to specific offenses, and perceived risk may also be considered a demographic factor that contributes to fear of crime. Women tend to have higher levels for both perceived risk and fear of crime.

The feminist pathways perspective is a feminist perspective of criminology which suggests victimization throughout the life course is a key risk factor for women's entry into offending.

Maladjustment is a term used in psychology to refer the "inability to react successfully and satisfactorily to the demand of one's environment". The term maladjustment can be refer to a wide range of social, biological and psychological conditions.

Secondary victimisation refers to further victim-blaming from criminal justice authorities following a report of an original victimisation.

References

  1. 1 2 Hale, C. (1996). Fear of crime: A review of the literature. International Review of Victimology, 4, 79-150.
  2. 1 2 Lee, M. (2001). The Genesis of Fear of Crime. Theoretical Criminology (5) 4. 467-485
  3. ↑ Gabriel, U. & Greve, W. (2003). The psychology of fear of crime: Conceptual and methodological perspectives. British Journal of Criminology, 43, 600-614.
  4. 1 2 Jackson, J. (2004) 'Experience and Expression: Social and Cultural Significance in the Fear of Crime.' British Journal of Criminology, 44, 6, 946-966.
  5. ↑ Jackson, J. (2006). Introducing Fear of Crime to Risk Research, Risk Analysis, 26, 1, 253-264
  6. ↑ Jackson, J. (2011). 'Revisiting Risk Sensitivity in the Fear of Crime', Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 48, 4, 513-537.
  7. 1 2 Skogan, W. and Maxfield, M. (1981) Coping with Crime, Beverly Hills: Sage.
  8. ↑ Wilson. J.Q. and Kelling, G.L. (1982). 'Broken Windows'. Atlantic Monthly, March, 29-38.
  9. 1 2 Wyant, B.R. (2008). Multilevel impacts of perceived incivilities and perceptions of crime risk on fear of crime. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 45(1), 39-64.
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  11. ↑ Brunton-Smith, Ian; Jackson, Jonathan (2012). "Urban Fear and its Roots in Place". In Ceccato, Vania (ed.). Urban Fabric of Crime and Fear. London: Springer. pp. 55–82. SSRN   1670657.
  12. ↑ Merry, S. (1981). Urban Danger: Life in a Neighborhood of Strangers. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  13. 1 2 Girling, E., Loader, I. & Sparks, R. (2000). Crime and Social Control in Middle England: Questions of Order in an English Town. London: Routledge.
  14. ↑ Lee, M. (1999). The fear of crime and self-governance: Towards a genealogy. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 32(3), 227-246.
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  16. ↑ Furedi, F. (2006). The politics of fear: Beyond left and right. London: Continuum Press.
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  18. ↑ Gray, E., Jackson, J. and Farrall, S. (2008). Reassessing the Fear of Crime, European Journal of Criminology, 5, 3, 363-380.
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  20. ↑ Sacco, V. (2005). When Crime Waves, Sage Publications/Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, CA.
  21. ↑ Sutton, R. M., & Farrall, S.D. (2005). Gender, socially desirable responding and the fear of crime: Are women really more anxious about crime? British Journal of Criminology, 45, 212-224.
  22. ↑ Jackson, J. (2009). A Psychological Perspective on Vulnerability in the Fear of Crime. Psychology, Crime and Law, 15, 4, 365-390.
  23. ↑ Warr, M. (1987). Fear of victimisation and sensitivity to risk. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 3, 29-46.
  24. ↑ Tyler, T. R. (1984) 'Assessing the risk of crime victimization: The integration of personal victimization experience and socially transmitted information.' Journal of Social Issues, 40, 27-38.
  25. ↑ Tyler, T.R. (1980) 'Impact of Directly and Indirectly Experienced Events: The Origin of Crime-related Judgements and Behaviours' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39:13-28.
  26. ↑ Covington, J. and Taylor, R. B. (1991). "Fear of Crime in Urban Residential Neighbourhoods: Implications of Between- and Within- Neighborhood Sources for Current Models. The Sociological Quarterly, 32, 2, 231-249.
  27. 1 2 3 Taylor, R. B. and Hale, M. (1986). "Testing Alternative Models of Fear of Crime". The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science, 77, 1, 151-189. (This Journal later changed its name to Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology)
  28. ↑ Skogan, W. (1986) 'Fear of crime and neighborhood change'. Crime and Justice, 8, 203-229.
  29. ↑ Perkins, D. & Taylor, R. (1996). Ecological assessments of community disorder: Their relationship to fear of crime and theoretical implications. American Journal of Community Psychology, 24, 63-107.
  30. ↑ Bannister, J. (1993). Locating fear: Environmental and ontological security. In H. Jones (Ed.), Crime and the urban environment (pp. 69-84). Aldershot: Avebury.
  31. ↑ Innes, M. (2004) Signal crimes and signal disorders: Notes on deviance as communicative action. British Journal of Sociology, 55, 317-334.
  32. ↑ Tulloch, M. (2003). Combining classificatory and discursive methods: Consistency and variability in responses to the threat of crime. British Journal of Social Psychology, 42(3), 461-476.
  33. ↑ Goffman, E. (1971) Relations in Public. New York: Basic Books.
  34. 1 2 Farrall, S., Jackson, J. and Gray, E. (2009). 'Social Order and Fear of Crime in Contemporary Times', Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Studies in Criminology.
  35. ↑ Intravia, J.; Stewart, E.; Warren, P.; Wolff, K. (2016). "Neighborhood disorder and generalized trust: A multilevel mediation examination of social mechanisms". Journal of Criminal Justice. 46 (1): 148–158. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2016.05.003.
  36. ↑ Carvalho, I. & Lewis, D. A. (2003). Beyond community: Reactions to crime and disorder among inner-city residents. Criminology, 41, 779-812.
  37. ↑ Sampson, R. J. and Raudenbush, S. W. (2004). Seeing Disorder: Neighborhood Stigma and the Social Construction of "Broken Windows". Social Psychology Quarterly 67: 319-342.
  38. ↑ Winkel, F. W. & Vrij, A. (1990). Fear of crime and mass media crime reports: Testing similarity hypotheses. International Review of Victimology, 1, 251-265.
  39. ↑ Silva, Cynthia; Guedes, Inês (2023). "The Role of the Media in the Fear of Crime: A Qualitative Study in the Portuguese Context". Criminal Justice Review. 48 (3): 300–317. doi: 10.1177/07340168221088570 . ISSN   0734-0168.
  40. 1 2 Ferraro, K. (1995). Fear of Crime: Interpreting Victimisation Risk. State University of New York press, Albany.
  41. ↑ Maguire, M. Morgan, R. and Reiner, R. (1997). Oxford Handbook of Criminology. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  42. ↑
  43. ↑ Stafford, M., Chandola, T., & Marmot, M. (2007). Association between fear of crime and mental health and physical functioning. American Journal of Public Health, 97, 2076-2081.
  44. ↑ Jackson, J. & Stafford, M. (2009). Public health and fear of crime: A prospective cohort study. British Journal of Criminology, 49, 6, 832-847
  45. ↑ Jackson, J. & Gray, E. (2010). Functional fear and public insecurities about crime, British journal of criminology, 50, 1, 1-21.
  46. ↑ Gray, E., Jackson, J. and Farrall, S. (2011). 'Feelings and Functions in the Fear of Crime: Applying a New Approach to Victimisation Insecurity', British Journal of Criminology, 51, 1, 75-94

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