Chapter 7 Flashcards
This fear relates to concerns regarding safety and well-being for others such as family or friends. It contributes to one’s personal fear.
Altruistic Fear
The gap between falling crime rates and stable or even increasing levels of fear has led to renewed interest among police in strategies for reducing fear of crime. What is this gap referred to as?
The reassurance gap
This defined as consisting of a “set of components found in social associations and interactions among people that, when activated, empower individuals and facilitate cooperation toward mutual benefit. In essence, it refers to the social support networks, local institutions, shared norms of trust and reciprocity, and collective activities among community members that can be used to produce a common good”.
Social capital
There are may national and local agencies working to identify the best strategies to address truancy and the surrounding issues, and those that are most successful include:
A. broad-based collaborative effort where schools and communities work jointly and proactively to effectively tackle the
problem of truancy.
NOTE: School officials, parents, politicians, law officials, community organizations, and social service agencies must all be at the planning table to collaboratively develop targeted truancy intervention strategies.
This is one of the first indicators of a child who is in trouble:
Truancy
Truancy has been correlated with (4):
- teen pregnancy
- Juvenile delinquency
- substance abuse
- adult criminality
This type of policing simply is police actions that go beyond crime and disorder problems. The police develop positive relationships with community members to the point that they have confidence and the police in their ability to serve community needs.
Reassurance policing
Historically, fear of crime was not a prime concern to the police and it was not until this era that fear of crime was an issue in the American criminal justice system.
1970’s
The victim’s movement was buttressed by these movements:
Women’s and children’s movements
These victimizations come with the treatment of the victims by the criminal justice system.
Secondary victimization
Fear of Crime became a legitimate police objective as a result of:
The Flint, Michigan, Foot Patrol Experiment
The Flint Foot Patrol Experiment
At the end of the program, roughly ______% of the citizens surveyed reported feeling safer as a result of the foot patrols.
70%
Rader note that the threat of victimization consists of three components:
(1) The emotive component, or generalized fear, where the individual becomes wary of real and perceived disorder, and crime events in the community
2. The cognitive component, which is one’s perceived risk and consists of one’s assessment of danger
3. The behavioral component, which is constrained activities or lifestyle.
Most research into fear of crime shows that there is some degree of irrationality associated with it. That is, fear of crime is not consistent with (1)___________ and
(2) ___________.
- victimization
2. levels of crime
There has been a substantial amount of interest in fear of crime over the past 20 years. Studies of the topic have resulted in four theoretical models that have been used to describe the fear of crime process. The models include: (4)
- the victimization model
- the disorder model
- the community concern model
- the subcultural-diversity model
This model explains that fear of crime through personal victimization, experiences, with others who have been victimized, and perceived and victimization.
The Victimization Model
This model postulates that fear is produced by the amount of perceived disorder that people encounter in their neighborhood, or areas where they travel such as work, shopping, and recreation.
The Disorder Model
This model posits that fear of crime is related to community dynamics.
The Community Concern Model
This model suggests that some measure of fear of crime is produced from persons living near others who have cultural backgrounds that are different from their own.
The Cultural-Diversity Model
Thompson and her colleagues investigated global fear, fear of property crime, and fear of violent crime. Global fear refer to one’s general sense of fear of crime. Their research indicated that this was perhaps the best way to measure or understand people’s fear of crime.
Global fear
Which theoretical model includes:
primary victimization
secondary victimization
victimization of family and friends
Victimization Model
Which theoretical model includes:
Disorder in neighborhood Vandalism Drugs and alcohol use Lawlessness Lack of community norms Gangs
Disorder Model
Which theoretical model includes:
Community dynamics
Diffuse attitudes about social change
Community Concern Model
Which theoretical model includes:
Different cultural backgrounds
Ethnic and racial diversity
Cultural-Diversity Model
One of the primary indicators of disorder in major cities is the presence of:
Gangs
This is the crime that produced the greatest amount of fear.
Identity Theft
This group was the most fearful of every crime with the exception of identity theft:
African-Americans
This crime is the most common type of crime and generates the most fear among Americans.
Property Crime
Agnew notes that direct victimization may not affect long-term levels of fear of crime because victims tend to neutralize their victimization. The victims may do the following (as a means to neutralize):
- blame themselves
- disregard the extent of their injuries, or
- attribute their victimization to helping a friend or acquaintance
Feminists maintain that there is underreporting of female victimization and female fear of crime may not be inconsistent with victimization rates. Some reasons for non-reporting include: (2)
- Women are more likely to be sexually assaulted by non-strangers
- Hidden violence in the form of domestic violence
This appears to be the best predictor of fear of crime.
Gender
This group constitutes the group that is victimized most frequently.
Young males
Police efforts to reduce fear of crime among women include the following: (3)
- First and foremost,, the police must continue their efforts to more effectively deal with crimes that target women: rape, sexual assaults, and domestic violence.
- Secondly, the police must ensure that there are ample safe public recreational areas for children.
- Third, it appears that a substantial portion of women’s fear is generated from their vulnerability.
It appears that a substantial portion of women’s fear of crime is generated from their vulnerability. Police-citizen academies and other training for women should emphasize: (4)
- self-defense
- victimization response
- community safety
- support for victim’s crime
This is only second to gender in predicting one’s level of fear of crime.
Age
No group of people have a higher rate of victimization from violent crime, particularly homicide, than:
Young male African-American
Anecdotal facts that help explain elderly levels of fear include the following: (3)
- First, elderly display heightened levels of fear in the high crimes areas, but their levels in non-crime areas are consistent with other groups
- Clemente and Kleiman found that age as a predictor of fear was strongest in inner-cities and weakest in rural areas and small towns
- Akers found that areas where there were higher concentrations of elderly, as opposed to a mix of ages, produced lower levels of fear.
Gaines and Kappeler note that this under-enforcement, as opposed to over-enforcement, generates the largest number of complaint from this community.
The African-American community
The police frequently come under fire from some segments of the Africans community when they increase their presence and enforcement levels, but they also receive substantial support from a number of residents, especially this group, who are in favor of stricter enforcement.
Elderly
Graber in a study of newspapers, found that ________ to ________% of the news stories were devoted to crime. 12 to 13% of television news was devoted to crime.
22 to 28%
Three factors that serve to predict the influence f news reporting on fear of crime: (3)
- locale
- degree of randomness
- the bizarreness of violence associated with the act.
Jurin and Field examined newspaper articles about crime and found the following contributed to it being reported:
- Sensational nature of the crime
- Public interest in the victim or perpetrator
- The humorous nature of the crime
Although crime news is extremely popular, the police should attempt to have the media include more of these stories about the police and the community. These type of stories foster a greater sense of security and help reduce the fear of crime.
Human-interest stories
The traditional police response to fear of crime has been to:
Disregard it as a legitimate police
objective
This study demonstrated that people pay little attention to the police who ride the streets as a function of routine patrol. It appeared that the public’s perception of the police was based on direct contacts and the quality of those contacts.
Kansas City Patrol Study
Fear Reduction in Newark, NJ
As a result of an extensive planning process, the police department identified three basic sources of fear that should be addressed: (3)
- the lack of local, relevant information about crime and ways to prevent it
- the presence of social disorder and physical deterioration in a neighborhood
- the limited quality of contacts between the police and the public
Fear Reduction in Newark, NJ
An evaluation of the program found that this had no profound effect on crime or fear problems.
the community newsletter
In a study by Scheider, Rowell and Bezdikian that investigated the effects of community policing on satisfaction with the police, crime prevention behaviors, and fear of crime. They found that community policing did not affect citizen’s fear of crime. In fact, fear increases when the following crime prevention activities were used:
- distributing crime news or information and
2. engaging in crime prevention activities
It seems providing police presence does not improve peoples fear of crime. This is the best way to reduce fear of crime.
“Positive contacts” between police and people
It seems providing police presence does not improve peoples fear of crime. This is the best way to reduce fear of crime.
“Positive contacts” between police and people
