Self-protective behaviours against crime in urban settings: An empirical approach to vulnerability and victimization models (original) (raw)
Related papers
Different Measures of Vulnerability in their Relation to Different Dimensions of Fear of Crime
British Journal of Criminology, 2000
Vulnerability has, in research conducted over the last decade, been found to be significantly related to fear of crime. It seems to be particularly helpful in explaining seemingly disproportionate fear levels among women and the elderly, as well as in a few situational contexts. In the present research, a representative sample of Switzerland's population (N=726) was interviewed on various aspects of fear of crime in the public sphere. All respondents were asked how they assessed their own ability to escape or resist in case of an attack by a young assailant. In addition, interviewers rated several aspects of respondents' 'visible' vulnerability. In multivariate analyses, vulnerability, as assessed by respondents themselves, explained fears and worries about crime better than interviewer-assessed measures of vulnerability. It is concluded that, in comparison to demographic and contextual (neighbourhood) variables, physical vulnerability seems to play an important and consistent role in the genesis of fear of crime.
A Psychological Perspective on Vulnerability in the Fear of Crime
This paper examines vulnerability and risk perception in the fear of crime. Past studies have often treated gender and age as proxies for vulnerability, and on the few occasions that vulnerability has been operationalised, there has been little agreement on the mechanisms that underpin perceived susceptibility. To develop a more theoretically-driven approach, the current study examines whether markers of vulnerability are associated with higher levels of fear through mediating assessments of likelihood, control and consequence. Females are found to worry more frequently than males partly because (a) they feel less able to physically defend themselves, (b) they have lower perceived self-efficacy, (c) they have higher perceived negative impact, and (d) they see the likelihood of victimisation as higher for themselves and for their social group. Younger people are also found to worry more frequently than older people, but differential vulnerability does not explain this association. Finally structural equation modelling shows that the effects on worry of physical defence capabilities, self-efficacy and perceived consequence are mostly mediated through judgements of absolute and relative risk. Conclusions focus on the implications of this finding for debates about the rationality of the fear of crime.
Perceived insecurity and fear of crime in a city with low-crime rates
Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2014
Fear of crime is one of the most important problems in our cities, even in low-crime-rate areas. The aim of this paper is to provide evidence of the issues involved in the perceived risk of victimization and fear of crime in these contexts using the Structural Equation Model (SEM) technique. Five hundred and seventy-one people living in a working-class neighborhood of Barcelona answered a 45-item questionnaire including the following 7 constructs: perception of insecurity, previous threat experiences, social representations of insecurity, personal control and coping skills, potential aggressors, urban identity, and perceived environmental quality. Findings confirm the theoretical model, in which fear of crime is structurally related to: a) environmental features, b) personal variables, and c) social representation of unsafe places. In addition, we found that the role of social aspects is as important as that of environmental and psychological ones. Residential satisfaction and urban social identity appear as relevant variables.
Social Sciences, 2022
The lack of organisation in urban spaces plays a decisive role in the level of integration, com-munication and social bond of the residents, impacting the citizens’ feelings of trust and security. Different personal variables and contextual characteristics have been associated with the fear of crime (FOC). The main objective of this study is to analyse how individual and so-cial/environmental variables, and incivilities, predict crime against people and property, either occurred or feared crime. Five hundred and fifty-four residents (M = 43.82; SD = 18.38) in the Historic Centre of Porto (HCP), Portugal, answered 61 items of the Diagnosis of Local Security (DLS) Questionnaire. The results of this study show that in the most frequent crime category, 72% represent crime against property. In the feared crime category, there is a preponderance of crime against people (61%). Age predicted the most frequent and feared crime, while sex predicted the most feared crime only. Social/environmental variables, as well as incivilities, also predict the frequent and feared crime in two typologies, i.e., crime against people and crime against property. Practical implications to reduce FOC and areas for further investigation are discussed.
Fear of crime: the impact of different distributions of victimisation
There is often a mismatch between levels of crime and the fear of becoming a victim of crime. It is not uncommon to find individuals who suffer little or no crime but yet who are still fearful of some future crime. Alternatively, a place or region might see an increase in crime over time while the fear of crime remains unchanged. Building on a model that previously considered the fear of crime as an opinion shared by simulated individuals, here the impact that different distributions of crime have on the fear experienced by the population is analysed. Simulating the dynamics of the fear of individuals, along with changes of the distribution of crime, leads to results which show that fear is sensitive to the distribution of crime and that there is a phase transition for high levels of concentration of crime. A policy may be oriented to reduce crime, so that the population effectively suffers less crime, but if the victimisation is displaced to other individuals, then the perception of insecurity may not decrease, with fear becoming more widespread.
Fear of Crime in Residential Communities
Criminology, 1979
0 Three variables were hypothesized to cause a fear of crime and apotential change in behavior. These were: ( I ) crimes against a person rather than crimes against property: (2) a crime commirted in an area frequented rather than a crime occurring in an area one never entered; (3) a recurring crime rather than a crime that occurred once. Two diJferent samples of female subjects (n = 249) were approached at their residences and were asked 10 read one of a number offictitious crime stories that the news media supposedly had not reported and to complete two scales measuring: ( I ) an emotional response to crime and (2) a potential behavioral response to crime. The results indicate that a physical assault produces both more fear and more potential behavioral change than a burglary. A crime that occurs eight times causes people to consider taking precautions in comparison to a crime that occurs once. There is some evidence that a crime in an area one frequents causes more fear than a crime occurring in an area one never enters. Shotland et al. / FEAR OF CRIME 45 Carlotta Young is a doctoral candidate in psychology specializing in social psychology with interests in evaluation research and thepsychology of women. Margaret L Signorella is a doctoral candidate in psychology at Pennsylvania State University and is currently an instructor at Eastern Michigan University. Her interests include the psychology of women and developmentalpsychology. Kenneth Mindingall graduated Brown University (B. A.) 1973. Washington University (M.A.) 1975. and Pennsylvania State University (M.S.) 1978. Mr. Mindingall is currently employed as partial Hospitalization Coordinator
Fear of crime and victimisation. A Multivariate Multilevel Analysis of Competing Measurements
European Journal of Criminology, Vol. 5, No. 4, 387-409, 2008
This study models simultaneously three commonly used indicators of fear of crime — feeling unsafe alone at home after dark, feeling unsafe walking alone after dark and worry about becoming a victim of crime — against direct (being a victim) and indirect (knowing a victim) victimization, controlling for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of individuals via multivariate, i.e. multiple responses, multilevel analysis of data from Athens, Greece. The results show that (a) the association of the three indicators weakens as key explanatory factors of fear of crime are accounted for, (b) crime experiences are related to feeling unsafe at home alone after dark only via its association with feeling unsafe walking alone after dark and worry about becoming a victim of crime and (c) indirect and direct prior victimization and crime exposure predominantly shape perceived future risk.
How long does victimization foster fear of crime? A longitudinal study
Journal of Community Psychology, 2010
We studied the relationship between victimization and fear of crime longitudinally, analyzing data from the Observatory of the North-West (Italian national sample, N 5 1,701, two waves: January 2006 and January 2007). We modeled fear of crime at T 2 using as independent variables: (a) the main sociodemographic variables and fear of crime, as assessed at T 1 ; (b) direct victimization; and (c) indirect victimization. Recent direct victimization was the most effective victimization predictor of both concrete and abstract fears, followed by multiple or repeat direct victimization. On the other hand, direct victimization occurring in the 12 months before the first wave did not influence fear. Recent indirect victimization and, above all, multiple or repeat indirect victimization influenced concrete, but not abstract, fear of crime, while direct victimization occurring in the 12 months before the first wave did not foster fear. We discuss the limits of this work and possible further directions. C