Talk:Fear of crime

Bias?

This article appears biased to me. Like it's trying to say that being fearful of crime is an unreasonable thing. This sentence for example: "Although the evidence details the myths surrounding elderly victimisation, the elderly still have a fear of crime problem." The elderly have a fear of crime problem? How can it be sure that the rest of society simply doesn't care enough, for example? Similar to voter turnout demographics. Peoplesunionpro 21:37, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree

I agree and have added a different, more theoretical approach (cognitive, behaviour, etc). About the elderly: recent research (Dutch) shows that the supposed victim-fear paradox disappears when looking closely and carefully at different agegroups. The young are actually most likely to become a victim of crime and they also have the highest fear of crime. No paradox there. I'll write a little more about that later. The role of the media is unclear. Does anyone have something on that? 82.150.129.225 09:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

April 2024 cleanup

Anyone who wants to participate in a major cleanup of this article (and integration into related articles) is most welcome - I work from the bottom to the top and am going through references section at the moment Superb Owl (talk) 21:20, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

== Behavioral aspects of fear of crime ==

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. Superb Owl (talk) 04:06, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

A subject's criminal risk perception is exaggerated by peer-communication on crime and only moderated by the own experience. In other words a person may have never witnessed any crime in a one frequented area, and yet perceive the place as high risk. Superb Owl (talk) 04:14, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

This distortion of coverage leads to a misunderstanding of criminality.

Unfortunately, despite an abundant literature on media effects – particularly the 'mean world' hypothesis – little work has been done into how representations, imagery and symbols of crime circulate in society, transmitted and transformed by multiple actors with a wide array of effects, only to translate into personal fears about crime. Perhaps future work will take account of the transmission mechanisms through which representations, beliefs and attitudes about societal risks are propagated in different social and cultural contexts. Superb Owl (talk) 04:30, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

== Fear of crime as socially constructed ==

See also: Democratic backsliding and Authoritarianism

Fear of crime can also be understood from a social constructionist perspective. Once fear of crime had a name it could be deployed as a political tactic in a law and order politics.The formation of a 'fear of crime feedback loop' then allowed more citizens to be surveyed as fearful, more politicians to be able to use crime fear as a political issue, security products to be sold on the back of crime fear and so on in an ever-increasing spiral that popularised crime fear. Moreover, once citizens were seen as being motivated by concerns about crime fear of crime could be used as a responsibilising technique to activate citizens to conduct themselves or consume products in ways that reduce their vulnerability to crime victimisation. This approach to understanding fear of crime does not deny the experiences of individuals who fear crime victimisation but suggests that such experiences have to be understood as being intimately connected to broader socio-political contexts. Superb Owl (talk) 01:51, 16 April 2024 (UTC)