Fear of Crime, Volume 2

• NCJ Number: 176090
• Author(s): J Tulloch; D Lupton; W Blood; M Tulloch; C Jennett; M Enders
• Date Published: 1998
• Length: 350 pages
• Corporate Author: Centre for Cultural Risk Research
• Sale Source: National Crime Prevention
• Language: English
• Country: Australia

Annotation

This second volume of a three-volume study of the fear of crime in Australia contains three separate fieldwork studies composed of a main study that examined general fear of crime among 148 participants in Sydney, Hobart and Wollongong, rural Tasmania, and Bathurst, as well as two studies that examined fear of crime related to transport and the media for people in Sydney, the Blue Mountains, and Bathurst.

Abstract

In the main study, personal experience of crime was strongly linked to heightened awareness of the risk of crime, and people's sense of physical vulnerability was structured through gender and age; however, although older people may feel physically vulnerable, younger people are placed in more spatial and temporal coordinates that result in the fear of crime. Parents of teens manifested a higher sense of fear on behalf of their children than about themselves and were torn between fears for their children's safety and the belief that their children should have increasing autonomy. People typically viewed crime as nomadic (on the move) and as committed by the "unpredictable stranger." Respondents were more afraid of this criminal image when present in public spaces than when in their own homes. Women were more concerned about securing the home against invasion than were men. In the Transport Study, three generational groups were interviewed through focus groups and extended individual interviews. This study showed that teens had the greatest fear of crime in public transportation; their parents also had significant fears for their children when traveling at night, particularly at deserted bus stops and stations, as well as on trains. Older people tended to avoid traveling on public transport at night. In the Media Study, many people were both cynical about the media's accuracy, but they also stated that the media was their primary source of knowledge about crime. Young people in particular used media presentations of various types to form their perceptions about the risk of victimization. A 32-item bibliography