NCJ Number
214089
Date Published
2005
Length
29 pages
Annotation
This chapter reviews research on citizen fear of crime and criminal justice efforts to reduce it and critiques the way in which fear of crime has been measured.
Abstract
The authors question the assumption that the fear of crime is a problem in itself that should be addressed through criminal justice interventions. Instead, they argue that some fear of crime can be positive, such as where it encourages sensible precautions against victimization. Following this argument, criminal justice policies aimed at addressing citizen fear of crime should focus on the optimal distribution of fear such that it encourages citizen precaution yet is diffuse enough to avoid public anxiety. Research is presented on strategies that have attempted to reduce fear of crime and a critique is offered on the ways in which citizen fear of crime has been measured. The authors describe crime reduction programs associated with community policing, focusing on their impact on fear of crime, such as the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy and the National Reassurance Policing Programme (NRPP), the latter of which was developed specifically to reduce public levels of fear of crime while also improving levels of public trust and confidence in police. The strategy of the NRPP involved a focus on signal crimes (events and states that produce public anxieties) and community involvement in problem solving through the use of informal social control. The authors introduce the term “perceptual intervention” and describe it as an action performed to manipulate or alter the way a particular aspect of the world is viewed, in this case crime, disorder, and police response to these problems. In closing, it is recommended that future research on citizen fear of crime should employ at least a two phase-panel quantitative survey coupled with qualitative interviews. Figure, notes, references