Community Dimensions of Offending, Crime and Fear of Crime (original) (raw)

Crime and Community: Continuities, Contradictions and Complexities

1996

This article explores the research on community crime prevention, fear of crime, and alternative crime control strategies that go beyond those of traditional criminal justice agencies. The discussion focuses on the competing paradigms for prevention and control that have been tried over the past 20 years and relates that debate to the larger questions of crime causation and public attitudes toward crime that fuel this competition. Alternative policy options are discussed and recommendations related to the most promising approaches are made.

Community Perceptions of Crime

This paper explores the situational factors that explain why crime in Bormla occurs in certain areas and not others. Bormla, one of the oldest cities in Malta, is the fifth crime hotspot on the Maltese Islands. The objective of this paper is to find out whether socio-demographic aspects and/or other contextual aspects are linked with the rate and type of crime that takes place within this city. A multi-method approach was adopted for the purposes of this paper. Statistics issued by the Malta police were analysed to find out which criminal offences occur there, and in which location. This analysis took place with the help of Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Qualitative and quantitative data collected through a needs assessment exercise conducted with a sample of Bormla respondents in 2009 and 2010 was also analysed to find out whether residents concurred with this official picture of what type of crime takes place there, and where it occurs. Residents were also asked whether they felt safe living in this crime hotspot, when and where they felt safe, and why.

Fear of Crime in a Small Community

2005

The paper engages with the "commonsense" notion, and that of Ezioni (1993), that fear of crime might be lower in a small relatively close-knit community. To that end it sets out to investigate people's concerns about crime and to relate them to notions of community in The Cathedral Close in Lichfield (UK), where the researcher, serendipitously, was resident at the time of writing. The paper places fear of crime within a criminological paradigm and engages with the necessary limitations of that paradigm. It suggests that new extraparadigmatic perspectives may be more illuminating of the concerns expressed by people about crime, and in this vein examines the perceived relationship between the concerns of the residents of The Close about crime and their perception of their place within that small community.

5. Are Neighbourhood Incivilities Associated with Fear of

Beyond the direct harm that crime has on individuals and their communities, crime also has destructive effects indirectly through fear of crime. Whether or not such fear is based on a realistic assessment of the likelihood of crime victimisation, it can have debilitating effects on an individual's physical and mental wellbeing and social functioning. Based on a longitudinal study of persons aged fifty to seventy-five, Stafford, reported that fear of crime was associated with reduced quality of life, higher rates of depression and poorer mental health. In addition, fear of crime was associated with reduced physical functioning. The authors hypothesised that the poorer mental and physical health outcomes are the result of the curtailment of physical and social activities resulting from the fear of crime. While attempts to estimate the economic and social costs of fear of crime have been limited by the difficulty of measuring intangible costs, Dolan and Peasgood highlight the need to consider the tangible costs of fear of crime (for example, costs resulting from changed behaviour to reduce the perceived risk of victimisation such as the cost of taking taxis rather than public transport) and associated health costs (in the United Kingdom estimated at £19.5 per year per person).