The Political Significance of Fear of Crime

In order to assess the role of fear of crime in Americans' political opinions and candidate attitudes, the NES pilot planning committee designed a new fear of crime question. In this report, we examine the origins of fear of crime and its direct and indirect effects on political opinions and evaluations. We find that fear of crime has different origins depending on whether one is engaged or not in one's community. For socially isolated individuals, fear of crime is heavily based on indirect and mass-mediated information. We find that fear of crime is an important additional predictor of people's crime prevention attitudes and that it shapes evaluations of illegal immigrants, but no other social group. We also show that fear of crime erodes beliefs about government responsiveness, but does not affect trust in government. Finally, we consider whether fear of crime prompts people to seek out information about political candidates and whether it stimulates political participation. We find that fear can motivate information acquisition and participation, but only if it is combined with knowledge about politics or educational resources. Absent these, its main effect is to strongly discourage cognitive engagement and behavioral involvement in politics.