Feeling unsafe in Italy’s biggest cities

Abstract

Crime and fear of crime are key challenges for civic coexistence in contemporary cities, specifically because of the unequal relationship between the two phenomena. In the case of Italy, for instance, even though crime has been trending downward over the past few decades, people are increasingly concerned about their safety. Based on survey data ( N = 6002) collected in Milan, Naples, Rome, and Turin, this research provides a cross-city comparison of the factors that influence individuals’ feelings of unsafety. The results of a multi-group structural equation model endorse the prior literature by revealing that being the victim of a crime predicts higher levels of subjective unsafety. On the other hand, perceived disorder in the neighbourhood, community disaffection, and objective and subjective measures of social exclusion are also consistent predictors of residents’ fears in all four cities. All in all, the model outputs indicate that non-criminal factors have a higher explanatory power than victimization for perceived unsafety. The implications of these findings for urban safety management are discussed.

Perceived reasons of unsafety among independently living older adults in Sweden

“…Although fear of crime might be one important explanation for feeling unsafe in advanced age, the lack of studies including other relevant factors might lead to overestimating its importance. In line with current models on unsafety (Valente & Valera Pertegas, 2018;Valente et al, 2020), this study addresses other potential reasons for feelings of unsafety over and above fear of crime.…”

“…Perceiving other people as potentially threatening has been previously described in the 'fear of "strangers"' (Heber, 2011, p. 64) and the 'fear as the "other"' (Walklate, 1998, p. 404) discourses. Further, community disaffection contributes significantly to the subjective feelings of unsafety among adults (Valente et al, 2020). These descriptions of social climate-related unsafety differ from fear of crime in that they may include a range of non-crime-related unsafety experiences for older adults.…”

“…When social climate in the neighbourhood is perceived as unattractive due to experienced unfriendliness of others, perceived social exclusion or lack of feeling of belonging to a community, social context is at risk of being compromised resulting in experienced unsafety (Brosschot et al, 2018). On the one hand, perceived social environment and antisocial behaviour of others is important in explaining fear of crime (Farrall et al, 2007;Lorenc et al, 2012) and feelings of unsafety (De Donder et al, 2012;Valente et al, 2020). On the other hand, social connectedness in their neighbourhoods is very important for older adults' feelings of safety while ageing in place (Wiles et al, 2012).…”

A “space” of one’s own: identity and conflict in two Milan districts

“…The results are available at this page http://margi nproj ect.eu/wp-conte nt/uploa ds/2017/05/Overv iewresul ts.pdf). Further analysis can be found inBarabás (2018),Valente and Crescenzi (2019);Valente et al (2020).…”