Suchergebnisse

'Ausgangspunkt der vorliegenden Arbeit ist die Frage, wieweit der Standardindikator der Kriminalitätsfurcht (Sicherheitsgefühl nachts draußen alleine in der Wohngegend) diese tatsächlich auch misst. Hierzu wurde zunächst einer Stichprobe in Freiburg ein quantitativer Fragebogen vorgegeben, der eine Reihe von Fragen zur Messung der Kriminalitätsfurcht enthielt. Von den 293 antwortenden Personen wurden im Sinne eines Extremgruppendesigns nach ihren Angaben im standardisierten Fragebogen 24 hoch und 6 niedrig Ängstliche ausgewählt und in einem zusätzlichen qualitativen Interview zu den Gründen der angegebenen Kriminalitätsfurcht befragt. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass Personen die auf dem Standardindikator ein hohes Maß an Furcht angaben, vor allem 'Incivilities' in ihrer Umgebung wahrnahmen, und die Angabe von Kriminalitätsfurcht im Fragebogen weitgehend synonym zu diesen Missständen werteten, jedoch kaum Furcht im engeren Sinne erlebten. Ferner konnte eine hohe Ambiguität des Standardindikators festgestellt werden, d.h. diese Frage eignet sich nur sehr begrenzt zur Erfassung von Kriminalitätsfurcht. Angesichts der kriminalpolitischen Bedeutung dieses Konstruktes ist eine reliablere und validere Erfassung notwendig.' (Autorenreferat)

Chile is regarded as one of the safest countries in Latin America. Crime rates are extremely low when compared to the rest of the region, and the police are widely considered to be efficient and trustworthy. Despite these objective trends, fear of crime is widespread throughout Chile. Why are Chileans so fearful when their country is so safe? We argue that fear of crime in Chile does not reflect fear of criminal acts per se, but is rather a manifestation of a wide range of daily insecurities. That is, fear of crime is rooted in other economic, social, and political insecurities featuring prominently in Chilean life today. To substantiate this argument, we test the ability of these "other" insecurities to predict fear of crime using a recent survey conducted by the International Labor Organization in 2001. We test our hypothesis alongside counterhypotheses prominent in the literature: social identity characteristics, victimization, trust in the media, urbanization, and community participation. We find that political, social, and economic insecurities best predict fear of crime; however, victimization, urbanization, and trust in the media are also significant. Our results suggest that scholars should study fear of crime not only as it relates to victimization and criminalization, but also in a context of insecurities generated by increasing rates of unemployment and poverty.

Analyses victimization and fear of crime by focusing on Latina girls and young women, whose voices it is suggested have not been heard in discussions of violence and crime. Relates fear of crime among Latina teenagers to their feelings of identity as immigrants.

A relationship between fear of crime and the racial composition of place has been widely assumed but seldom tested. Interviews conducted with a random sample of adults residing in a major state capital in the early months of 1994‐at the height of a media‐driven panic about violent crime‐are used to test the proposition that as the percentage of blacks in one's neighborhood increases, so too will the fear of crime. We use objective and perceptual measures of racial composition, and we examine the effects of racial composition and minority status on fear of crime for black and white respondents. We distinguish between perceived safety or risk of victimization and fear, with the former used as an intervening variable in path models of fear of crime. Results show that actual racial composition has no consequence for the fear of crime when other relevant factors are controlled. Perceived racial composition is significant for fear among whites, but not among African‐Americans. In particular, the perception that one is in the racial minority in one's neighborhood elevates fear among whites but not among blacks. All effects of perceived racial composition on fear are indirect and mediated by the perception of risk of crime.