Anxiety, Defensiveness and the Fear of Crime

Open any daily newspaper on almost any day and the chances are you will find an article related to the ‘fear of crime’. In the wake of September 11, such articles are probably on the increase. Some, like the first Guardian article quoted above will try to assess, in the words of its headline, ‘How scared are we?’. Others, like the second quotation, seem to recognise the issue of overreaction. Still others, like the final quotation, draw attention to the disjunction between fear and risk – in this case to the fact that despite the falling crime rate in England and Wales increasing numbers of people ‘believe crime is getting worse’. What these and other similar articles reveal, if nothing else, is that the issue of the fear of crime is more complex than might appear at first sight. Our intention is to show how and why our present knowledge of the topic is so muddled, and what is necessary to clarify matters. The latter point involves showing how the adoption of a psychosocial approach to the topic manages to do this.