Fear of crime

The fear of crime refers to the fear of being a victim of crime as opposed to the actual probability of being a victim of crime. The fear of crime, along with fear of the streets and the fear of youth, is said to have been in Western culture for 'time immemorial'. While fear of crime can be differentiated 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. The fear of crime refers to the fear of being a victim of crime as opposed to the actual probability of being a victim of crime. The fear of crime, along with fear of the streets and the fear of youth, is said to have been in Western culture for 'time immemorial'. While fear of crime can be differentiated 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. Importantly, 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. 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, underlining the distinction between low-level anxieties that motivate caution and counter-productive worries that damage well-being. Factors influencing the fear of crime include the psychology of risk perception, circulating representations of the risk of victimization (chiefly via interpersonal communication and the mass media), public perceptions of neighborhood stability and breakdown, the influence of neighbourhood context, and broader factors where anxieties about crime express anxieties about the pace and direction of social change. 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. Fear of crime has had a profound impact on the U.S. incarceration rate, having inspired the 'tough on crime' policies of the 1980s that led to Draconian sentences being widespread. Crime rates started decreasing before the new sentencing policies were implemented. Also significant is how despite the decrease in crime, media coverage of crime increased by 600% between 1998 and 2008. The media's 'culture of fear' has largely been dominated by frequent stories of crime and punishment. The core aspect of fear of crime is the range of emotions that is provoked in citizens by the possibility of victimization. While people may feel angry and outraged about the extent and prospect of crime, surveys typically 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. 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. Some people may be more willing to admit their worries and vulnerabilities than others. Concern about crime can be differentiated from perceptions of the risk of personal victimization (i.e. cognitive aspects of fear of crime). Concern about crime includes public assessments of the size of the crime problem. An example of a question that could be asked is whether crime has increased, decreased or stayed the same in a certain period (and/or in a certain area, for instance the respondents own neighborhood). Between 1972 and 2001, the Gallup Poll shows that American respondents think crime has decreased. By contrast, the cognitive side of fear of crime includes public perceptions of the likelihood of falling victim, public senses of control over the possibility, and public estimations of the seriousness of the consequences of crime. People who feel especially vulnerable to victimization are likely to feel that they are especially likely to be targeted by criminals (i.e. victimization is likely), that they are unable to control the possibility (i.e. they have low self-efficacy), and that the consequences would be especially severe. Additionally, these three different components of risk perception may interact: the impact of perceived likelihood on subsequent emotional response (worry, fear, anxiety, etc.) is likely to be especially strong among those who feel that consequences are high and self-efficacy is low. A third way to measure fear of crime is to ask people whether they ever avoid certain areas, protect certain objects or take preventive measures. This way, measuring fear of crime can become a relatively straightforward thing, because the questions asked tap into actual behavior and 'objective' facts, such as the amount of money spent on a burglar-alarm or extra locks. Although, some researchers such as Jesse Omoregie argue that measuring fear of crime can be problematic as there are various factors like social desirability effects, respondents downplaying or over-exaggerating their fear which can affect the reliability of data. Some degree of 'fear' might be healthy for some people, creating a 'natural defence' against crime. In short, when the risk of crime is real, a specific level of 'fear' might actually be 'functional': worry about crime might stimulate precaution which then makes people feel safer and lowers their risk of crime. The fear of crime is a very important feature in criminology. Perhaps the biggest influence on fear of crime is public concern about neighbourhood disorder, social cohesion and collective efficacy. 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. 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). 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. 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. Why might people have different levels of tolerance or sensitivity to these potentially ambiguous cues? UK research 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. 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.