1 / 29

POP & Fear of Crime

POP & Fear of Crime. Gary Cordner Eastern Kentucky University. Why Fear of Crime?. Widely accepted part of the police mission Recognized as semi-independent of crime itself An important component of quality of life Did not go down during the crime drop of the 1990s. Fear: What Do We Know?.

bernadine
Download Presentation

POP & Fear of Crime

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. POP & Fear of Crime Gary Cordner Eastern Kentucky University

  2. Why Fear of Crime? • Widely accepted part of the police mission • Recognized as semi-independent of crime itself • An important component of quality of life • Did not go down during the crime drop of the 1990s

  3. Fear: What Do We Know? • Hundreds and perhaps thousands of studies of fear of crime • Fear of crime is multi-dimensional: • Affective fear • Generalized fear vs. fear of certain places • Fear for self vs. fear for family/dependents • Perceived likelihood of victimization • Behavioral effects of fear

  4. Cont. • Young people, old people, and women often report the greatest fear • Women’s fear is strongly tied to assault and rape • Most people feel safer in and near their home than in other parts of town • Most people feel safer walking in the daytime than at night

  5. Cont. • Parents typically express fear for their children’s safety • Most people recognize that their chances of property crime victimization are greater than their chances of personal crime victimization • Many people report that they limit their activities due to fear of crime

  6. Policing to Reduce Fear: Prevailing Theories • Reducing Crime  Reduces Fear • Professional Policing  Reduces Fear • Reducing Disorder  Reduces Fear (Broken Windows) • COP  Reduces Fear

  7. National Survey (n=160) • Strategies or programs specifically designed to reduce fear of crime? • 46% • Systematically measure fear? • 10% • Generalized COP • Crime prevention & public education • Traditional crime fighting • Not much else

  8. What’s Missing? POP • Targeted, tailored responses • Based on careful analysis • Aimed directly at reducing fear • Followed up with assessment

  9. Some POP Tools & Issues • SARA • Crime Triangle • Fear of Crime Matrix • Signal Crimes • Media

  10. SARA • Scanning – to identify pockets of fear and/or new fear issues • Analysis – to determine who is most fearful, why, when, where, etc. • Response – after considering a range of responses, implementing one or more that are tailored to the specific problem • Assessment – determining whether fear was reduced, if not why not, etc.

  11. Crime Triangle • Locations – places where fear is greatest, or most out of proportion to risk • Offenders – people and behaviors most responsible for fear • Victims – people most affected by fear of crime • Guardians – people who have a stake in reducing fear and/or have some responsibility for offenders/locations

  12. Fear of Crime Matrix

  13. Signal Crimes • A particular event or type of crime, incident, or disorder • Interpreted by the public as a warning about their level of security • May have a disproportionate impact on fear of crime

  14. Impact of the Media • Real World Thesis – fear shaped by objective conditions • Cultivation Thesis – fear shaped by media messages that the world is a scary place • Substitution Thesis – media messages substitute for lack of personal experience • Resonance Thesis – media messages reinforce personal experience

  15. Research on Media Effects • Individuals’ fear of crime affected by real world conditions and experiences as well as by the media • Local TV news and tabloids seem to have the biggest media impact on fear of crime • Has more impact on residents of high-crime neighborhoods than low-crime ones (more resonance than substitution)

  16. Fundamental Considerations • Fear is multi-faceted • Fear varies among places • Fear varies among groups of people • Fear varies over time

  17. Fear Varies -- Concord, CA

  18. Fear Varies Widely • Fear of crime is high in my neighborhood: • Dana Estates – 14.7% • Highlands – 5.6% • Canterbury – 12.0% • PRA055 (Jefferson County, KY) – 51.2% • San Francisco unsafe walking at night in my neighborhood: • City-wide – 28% • Supervisory District 10 – 64%

  19. Residents vs. Businesses in PRA055 • Residents agreed more strongly that: • There is a good chance they will be the victim of a property crime in the next year • They had seriously thought about moving away because of crime • Businesses agreed more strongly that: • Their fear was high • Fear was high in the neighborhood • Most of the crime problems were caused by drugs • Many of the people in the neighborhood abuse drugs

  20. Sources of Fear Can Be Surprising (Jefferson County)

  21. Sources of Fear Can Vary (Lexington, KY) • Three public housing sites • The primary cause of crime around here is: • Bluegrass-Aspendale – drugs • Charlotte Court – unsupervised kids • Pimlico Park – outsiders

  22. Fear of Crime Matrix – San Francisco

  23. Groups of People • San Francisco – less safe walking alone in my neighborhood at night: • Women • People over 60 years old • Lower income residents • Less educated residents • Unemployed and under-employed residents • Latino-Hispanic and African-American residents

  24. Change Over Time • San Francisco 1997-2003 • Safe walking alone during the day: 73%  79% • Safe walking alone at night: 40%  45% • Chicago 1994-2003 • Afraid to go out at night: 40%  25% • Gap between men and women cut in half • Gap between young and old eliminated • Hispanics remained the most fearful

  25. COPE • Baltimore County in the early 1980s • Came to the conclusion that they had a fear of crime problem • Special units created • Evolution: saturation  crime prevention  POP • Assessment: POP worked best in reducing fear and improving public opinion

  26. COPE examples • Garden Village • Krone Drive • Senior high-rise • Neighborhood bullies • Hate crimes

  27. Policing to Reduce Fear • Generalized COP • Targeted POP • Identify and address signal crimes • Develop a media strategy designed to moderate media effects on fear of crime

  28. Key Issues and Considerations • Need to measure and analyze fear (direct and indirect methods) • Competing priorities and methods of crime-control vs. fear-reduction • Pernicious effects of moral panics and phony crime waves • Ethical issues related to fear reduction • Fear of terrorism

  29. Contact Information • If you know of agencies that we should contact, please let me know 859-622-2344 Gary.Cordner@eku.edu

More Related