Increased Fear of Crime and Related Side Effects of Persuasive Communication: The Price Tag of Burglary Prevention Campaigns? (From Crime and Its Victims: International Research and Public Policy Issues, P 273-295, 1989, Emilio C Viano, ed. -- See NCJ-119600)

• NCJ Number: 119626
• Author(s): F W Winkel
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 23 pages
• Sale Source: Hemisphere Publishing Corp
• Publication Type: Research (Theoretical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Crime prevention communication campaigns such as those used in this Dutch experiment can produce harmful side effects such as stimulating or increasing response generalization, intensifying fear of crime, and inflating subjective estimates of victimization risk and the perceived negative impact of crime.

Abstract

A sample of 324 subjects were pre- and posttested and evaluated on the effect of burglary prevention literature that expressed a positive, negative, or mixed emotional message. The two types of conditions pertain to the message and those characteristic of receivers. In this study, the relationship between fear and communication turned out to be conditional rather than automatic: Side effects became apparent if and only if certain conditions were met. These conditions were formed by both message characteristics and receiver characteristics that proved to have differential consequences. The increase in general fear which followed exposure to negative communication was diminished by the general fear reduction resulting from exposure to positive communication. 6 tables and bibliography