U.S. and Canadian College Students’ Fear of Crime: A Comparative Investigation of Fear of Crime and Its Correlates

Abstract

Being fearful of crime is, unfortunately, a common experience. Research shows that many factors influence a person’s fear of crime, demonstrating that certain groups are generally more fearful than others. Even though they are typically young, college students express being fearful of crime on and off campus. What has yet to be investigated is whether college students who attend school in the United States are fearful at similar levels to their Canadian counterparts. Further, the correlates of fear of crime may also be different. To explore these issues, data from the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment II survey of U.S. and Canadian college students are used. Results show that Canadian college students generally perceive their safety as being higher than U.S. college students, even though they face elevated victimization risks. Further, some correlates of fear of crime differ for U.S. and Canadian college students. These findings suggest the need for additional cross-national comparative work to see if patterns generalize across contexts.

Victimization, Disability Status, and Fear Among U.S. College Students

“…Second, our multivariate models show that having a disability and being a victim relate to fear across each of the four domains, when accounting for variables found to be related to fear in previous research (Daigle et al, 2022;Rader et al, 2020). Unexpectedly, we found that the interaction between having a disability and being a victim was not significant in any of the models.…”

“…This measure was coded as 0 if they did not report experiencing any of these behaviors within the last 12 months. In addition to these key independent variables, we include measures that have been shown to be connected to fear of crime among college students (Daigle et al, 2022;Rader et al, 2020). We include a binary measure of mental health that reflects if a student reported having been diagnosed with any of the 12 different mental health conditions (e.g., depression, anxiety, PTSD), coded as 0 for no and 1 for yes.…”

“…Fear of crime refers to feelings of worry, anxiety, or dread associated with the prospect of victimization (Daigle et al, 2022;Ferraro, 1995;Maher & Hayes, 2023). Fear of crime is commonly experienced.…”

Fear of Crime, Perceived Risk, and Confidence About Dangerous Situations Among University Women in the United States and Poland

“…Two types of predictor variables for fear of crime have been described by Vázquez et al (2021): individual-level , such as direct and vicarious victimization, avoidant and defensive behaviors, awareness, and sociodemographic characteristics, and country-level fear of crime, such as index of gender equality and the prevalence of intimate partner violence against women. Little is known about the interplay of cultural factors influencing the fear of crime and victimization, and there are few comparisons of fear of crime cross-culturally among female university students (Boateng, 2018; Daigle et al, 2021).…”

“…Recent findings show that approximately one-fourth of students fear crime on campus (Maier & DePrince, 2020a). However, we know that women are more fearful than men in matters of crime and experiences (Daigle et al, 2021). Race (Boateng & Adjekum-Boateng, 2017) and prior victimization often increase fear levels, as well (Maier & DePrince, 2021b; Mider, 2021).…”