A place-based approach to fear of crime: A systematic review of app-based and crowdsourced measures

Abstract

Few researches have considered fear of crime as a context-specific experience. This paper promotes a place-based theoretical framework for studying crime perceptions through presenting app-based and crowdsourcing measures of perception of crime and place as a robust methodological framework. A systematic review of published studies that use crowdsourced or app-based measures to explore perceptions of crime was conducted. From the 27 studies that met our inclusion criteria, reported strengths and limitations were synthesized to determine key developments and common issues, illustrated with data from three app-based studies. We found consensus that app-based and crowdsourcing measures of fear of crime capture more precise spatial and temporal data alongside auxiliary information about the individual and the environment. Practical benefits, such as reduced cost of data collection and implementable outputs that are useful to practitioners were also highlighted. However, limitations around sampling biases, generalizability of findings, and the under-representation of certain areas persist.

Fear of Cybercrime. An Experimental Study on the Mismatches between Self-Reported and Physiological Measures in a Simulated Cyberattack Environment

“…In contrast, new methodologies that account for fear in real-time will open up avenues of research that are currently under-exploited, as pointed out in a recent studies on physiological measures associated with fear of crime experiences (Castro-Toledo, Perea-García, Bautista-Ortuño, & Mitkidis, 2017, Noon et al, 2019, app-based studies (Solymosi, Buil-Gil, Vozmediano & Guedes, 2019), among others (see https://fearofcrime.shinyapps.io/Fear_of_crime_research_map/)…”