Fear of Crime in Residential Communities

Shotland, R. Lance; Hayward, Scott C.; Young, Carlotta Joyner; Signorella, Margaret L.; Mindingall, Kenneth; Kennedy, John K.; Rovine, Michael J.; Danowitz, Ed Ward F.

doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.1979.tb01274.x

Cited by 22 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…For example, when asked about how safe they felt walking in their own neighborhoods at night, over half the respondents living in cities of 500,000 or more reported feeling uncomfortable (Shortland et al 1979). Whereas, only 21-24 percent of the respondents living in small towns (under 2,500 residents) indicated feeling uncomfortable in their neighborhoods at night (Shortland et al 1979;Skogan and Maxfield 1981). However, research has found that crime and incivilities do not always give way to fear in inner city neighborhoods although it often influences one's sense of safety.…”

Section: Region and Fear Of Crimementioning

confidence: 96%

“…Early opinion polls found that both crime rates and fear of crime increased at a faster pace in urban areas than in rural areas (Hindelang 1974). For example, when asked about how safe they felt walking in their own neighborhoods at night, over half the respondents living in cities of 500,000 or more reported feeling uncomfortable (Shortland et al 1979). Whereas, only 21-24 percent of the respondents living in small towns (under 2,500 residents) indicated feeling uncomfortable in their neighborhoods at night (Shortland et al 1979;Skogan and Maxfield 1981).…”

Section: Region and Fear Of Crimementioning

confidence: 97%

“…Carvalho and Lewis (2003) argue that crime is considered a way of life in urban areas and therefore accepted. Whereas, opinion research has shown that individuals residing in urban areas (as compared with rural areas) had a higher reported percentage of fear of crime (Shortland et al 1979). We hypothesize that, because of the belief that urban areas experience more physical incivilities and lack social integration, they should experience a higher level of fear of crime (Covington and Taylor 1991;LaGrange et al 1992).…”

Section: Research Contextmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Prior Victimization, Region, and Neighborhood Effects on Fear of Crime in Mumbai, India

2011

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Research in Western countries has found that prior victimization, region, and neighborhood effects, such as high population density, residential instability and low social cohesion as well as related characteristics such as litter, public drunkenness, and abandoned storefronts, are all significant predictors of fear of crime. The present study examined the extent to which these factors were associated with predicting fear of crime in one of the fastest growing economies in the world -India. Data from the International Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS), conducted under the auspices of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Institute, suggest that, similar to findings from Western literature (with the exception of car theft and burglary), prior victimization is strongly related to fear of crime. However, contrary to findings from the Western literature, fear of crime appeared to be stronger among the middle classes than among the lower and higher classes. Moreover, limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

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Section: Region and Fear Of Crimementioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Region and Fear Of Crimementioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Research Contextmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Prior Victimization, Region, and Neighborhood Effects on Fear of Crime in Mumbai, India

2011

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“…Tversky and Hahneman (1974) propose that judgments under uncertainty are influenced by the availability of particularly vivid examples from memory. This may be why criminal events in the local vicinity are especially likely to elicit fear from people (Shotland et al, 1979). Crimes that occur in familiar places can be easily imagined.…”

Section: Differences Between Crime and Other Environmental Stressorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crime as an environmental stressor

Riger

1985

J. Community Psychol.

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While relatively few people are victims of criminal attack each year, many people fear personal crime and take safety precautions that limit their lives. This paper proposes a model of crime as an environmental stressor in order to explicate the links between the threat of criminal attack and people's attitudinal and behavioral reactions to that danger. Processes that affect both the assessment of the extent of danger and the choice of strategies to reduce that danger are examined. The paper concludes with a discussion of the social policy implications of an environmental stress model of crime.

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“…Baumer also points out that alternative approaches can be developed, among which rational choice ones based on the probabilistic reasoning about likelihood of occurrence and dangerousness of offences on the basis of environmental factors, personal characteristics and actual previous experience, or emotionally based ones that explain fear in terms of response to the psychological stress deriving by threat assessment and anticipation. Shortland et al (1979) showed that different types of crimes elicit different emotional responses in a classical target groups such as women; in particular, physical assault generates a stronger response than burglary, recurring crimes prevail upon occasional ones, and crimes occurring in one's residential neighbourhood prevail upon crimes occurring elsewhere. Ziegenhagen and Brosnan (1990) carry out a survey on New York City subway riders in high-crime areas finding a substantial diffusion of private self-protection devices (weapons), and finding that the stronger predictors for the carrying of weapons were previous victimization and fear of victimization.…”

Section: The Socio-psycho-economics Of Defensive Behaviour: a Few Insmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Security vs. Private Self-Protection: Optimal Taxation and the Social Dynamics of Fear

Antoci

Sacco²,

Sodini

2010

SSRN Journal

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SummaryIn this paper, we develop a simple model of social dynamics governing the evolution of strategic self-protection choices of boundedly rational potential victims facing the threat of prospective offenders in a large population with random matching. We prove that individual (and socially transmitted) fear of exposure to criminal threats may actually condition choices even in the face of objective evidence of declining crime rates, and thereby cause the eventual selection of Pareto inefficient equilibria with self-protection. We also show that a suitable strategy of provision of public security financed through discriminatory taxation of self-protective expenses may actually overcome this problem, and drive the social dynamics toward the efficient no protection equilibrium. In our model, we do not obtain, as in Cressman et al. (1998), a crowding-out result such that the net impact of public spending on the actual social dynamics is neutral and the economy keeps on cycling between phases of high and low criminal activity with varying levels of self-protection; quite to the contrary, it can be extremely effective in implementing the social optimum, in that it acts primarily on the intangible dimension, that is, on the social dynamics of fear. We claim that this kind of result calls for more interdisciplinary research on the socio-psychoeconomic determinants of fear of crime, and for consequent advances in modelling approaches and techniques. Keywords AcknowledgementsWe thank Giandomenico Amendola and Emanuele Mori for useful discussions, while retaining full responsibility for the paper. SummaryIn this paper, we develop a simple model of a social dynamics governing the evolution of strategic selfprotection choices of boundedly rational potential victims facing the threat of prospective offenders in a large population with random matching. We prove that individual (and socially transmitted) fear of exposure to criminal threats may actually condition choices even in the face of objective evidence of declining crime rates, and thereby cause the eventual selection of Pareto inefficient equilibria with selfprotection. We also show that a suitable strategy of provision of public security financed through discriminatory taxation of self-protective expenses may actually overcome this problem, and drive the social dynamics toward the efficient no protection equilibrium. In our model, we do not obtain, as in Cressman et al. (1998), a crowding-out result such that the net impact of public spending on the actual social dynamics is neutral and the economy keeps on cycling between phases of high and low criminal activity with varying levels of self-protection; quite to the contrary, it can be extremely effective in implementing the social optimum, in that it acts primarily on the intangible dimension, that is, on the social dynamics of fear. We claim that this kind of result calls for more interdisciplinary research on the socio-psycho-economic determinants of fear of crime, and for consequent advances in modelling approac...

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Fear of Crime in Residential Communities

Cited by 22 publications

References 3 publications

Prior Victimization, Region, and Neighborhood Effects on Fear of Crime in Mumbai, India

Prior Victimization, Region, and Neighborhood Effects on Fear of Crime in Mumbai, India

Crime as an environmental stressor

Public Security vs. Private Self-Protection: Optimal Taxation and the Social Dynamics of Fear

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