This paper aims to take a holistic approach to studying fear of crime by testing predictors at multiple levels of analyses. Data from the European Social Survey (N = 56,752 from 29 countries) were used to test and extend the Income Inequality and Sense of Vulnerability Hypotheses. The findings confirm that (1) individuals in societies with greater income inequalities are more fearful of crime, ...

Many police forces operate a policy of high visibility in disordered neighbourhoods with high crime. However, little is known about whether increased police presence influences people's beliefs about a neighbourhood's social environment or their fear of crime. Three experimental studies compared people's perceptions of social capital and fear of crime in disordered and ordered neighbourhoods, e...

The risk-fear paradox, whereby people who experience the least criminal victimisation report the greatest fear of crime, has been established in the extant literature. That this paradox is gendered, notably that women report greater fear yet are less likely to experience crime, has also been consistently identified. However, there remains a largely unanswered call to explore further the distinc...

Using a sample of 1010 women from a southeastern state university, we explore whether associations between fear of sexual assault and other crime-specific fears vary based on presumed victim-offender relationship. More specifically, we assess the extent to which fear of stranger- and acquaintance-perpetrated sexual assaults differ in the extent to which they are correlated with fear of other cr...

This Trends and Issues on fear of crime, and its reduction in Australia, represents an outstanding illustration of the contribution which criminological research can make to public policy. Various surveys in recent years have identified a number of factors consistently associated with fear of crime. These are gender (females tend to be more fearful than males) and the presence of disorder and i...

In recent decades, crime levels have given increasing cause for alarm, bringing material and immaterial consequences that have still to be properly understood. Anti-crime strategies urgently need to be implemented in order to promote safe communities and contribute to their sustainable development. Crime needs to be taken into account during the planning process, as valuable components can be p...

Title of Document: MAKING SENSE OF BROKEN WINDOWS: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEPTIONS OF DISORDER, FEAR OF CRIME, COLLECTIVE EFFICACY AND PERCEPTIONS OF CRIME Joshua Conard Hinkle, Doctor of Philosophy, 2009 Directed By: Professor David Weisburd Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice The broken windows thesis has had a profound impact on policing strategies around the world. The thesi...