Experience and Expression in the Fear of Crime

Abstract

We believe that advances in quantitative methods regarding fear of crime can and should be made. Following in a line of research going back nearly a decade (Farrall et al. 1997; Farrall, 2002; Farrall & Gadd, 2004; Jackson, 2004; Jackson et al. 2007) our Working Papers have assessed the everyday experience of fear of crime (i.e. events of worry and visceral feelings which manifest in people's daily lives). By drawing upon data from the 2003/2004 BCS - which fielded new measures of the fear of crime alongside standard items - we have shown that some individuals who say they are worried about crime do not actually worry as part of their everyday life. In this final Working Paper we begin by summarising previous findings. We then move to examining our broad theoretical framework which we outlined in Working Paper 5 and explored using qualitative data in Working Paper 6. To examine our framework we use data from (a) the 03/04 BCS and (b) a relatively small-scale survey from an earlier and separate study of ours (Jackson, 2004; Jackson & Sunshine, 2007).

Keywords: Fear of Crime, Methodology, Everyday Emotions, Criminology, Policy