Fear of crime stats

Abstract
The fear of crime is a widely discussed topic among criminal justice researchers. Fear of crime can be related to many variables such as education level, gender, environment, age, believes, culture and so forth. This report presents research on some of the variables that affect the fear of crime. Fear of crime presents itself in two genders on different levels. This is due to the fact that fear of crime is affected by variables such as environment, prior victimisation and age. With a set of preset questions, researchers conducted face to face interviews using a sample of volunteers to explore the relationship between variables to the fear of crime. The outcome provided some useful results to support the study on how males and females experience the fear of crime at different levels and prove how the variables affect the fear of crime in individuals.

Introduction
The hypothesis such as fear is related to gender has been discussed freely by many researches. Male ego and masculine machismo prevents male from being intimidated by the fear of crime. They are more likely to believe that they are invincible and are able to intimidate attackers when assaulted (Baur 2007; Stanko 1994; Sutton & Farrall 2005). Females tend to view themselves as more vulnerable to sexual assaults because of the perception that they are physically incapable to defend themselves (Baur 2007; Sutton & Farrall 2005).

Fear of crime affects society in many ways with some potentially severe fearfulness which result in self imprisonment in their own home or paranoia which cause other health issues. Research shows that variables such as gender, age, prior victimisations, environment, cultures and many others may have contributed in some way or another to the fear of crime in society. True or false, empirical research such as this current report helps in accepting or rejecting hypothesises. Thus the aim of this research focuses on proving that variables such as gender, age and prior victimisation does contributes to the fear of crime. The research uses sample of residents mostly from the Mt. Gravatt in Brisbane.

Literature review
The gender relationship with fear of crime
Many researches have found those females are more prone to the fear of crime (Baur 2007; Schafe, Huebner, Bynum 2006; Sutton & Farrall 2005). Females view themselves as physically more vulnerable compare to males and are afraid towards certain conditioning of situations (Baur 2007; Sutton & Farrall 2005). Being alone in their home and walking on the street during the day or night seems to agitate them. Males however seems to be less fearful in terms of crime at most times except for being out at night on the streets as their perceive safety showed a significant amount of anxiousness (Baur 2007; Sutton & Farrall 2005).

The debate on if female are more prone to fear of crime then male still goes on as the two different genders react to things differently. Females tend to flee from crime and prevent the opportunity for a criminal act to occur; whereas, males have the tendency to challenge danger thus more prone to criminal activities and put themselves in harms way (Sutton & Farrall 2005). The fear or vulnerability of female towards sexual assaults and robberies are on the high of the scale; whereas males tend to portray their masculine ego which pushes them to be less fearful toward criminal activities directed at them with the belief that they are capable to protect themselves (Baur 2007; Stanko 1994; Sutton & Farrall 2005).

The association of age with the fear of crime
It is argued that senior people are usually the less prone to crime compared to a younger people (Fattah 1993; Sanderson 2006). The actual criminal act upon them is far from the frequent fear of victimisation expressed by those ages above 65 years (Fattah 1993). Older people who encounter crime, generally suffer from some sort of domestic violence or assault. This is due to the fact that most seniors are financially dependent on others or living with family members who might see them as burden resulting in financial or career abuse that sometimes result in assault as well from their carers (Keys & Brown 2006; Marianne 1992). Older people live alone and this contributes to the fear they perceived. The fear of crime tends to spike high in their perception towards being vulnerability and susceptible to crime acts (Fattah 1993).

Another discussion that is raised is how older females are more prone to fear of crime. It could be the result of prior victimisation or cultural upbringing of fear of crime reinforced; and in this day and age where crime is everyday news (Sanderson 2006). The older generation do then to lack faith in the society and the criminal justice system to protect them and this contributes to their fear for safety (Fattah 1993; Sanderson 2006). With that said, this doesn’t mean that all the older people are prone to fear of crime. The influence of community based activities and groups cultivate trust and allow the elderly to build social networks which abandon the isolation they might be in (Fattah 1993).

Prior victimisation victims
Prior victimisation causes people to be more paranoid and prone to fear of crime (Robinson 1999, Baur 2007). Individuals who experienced crime would be more careful or take precautions such as installing dead locks on their home doors. Victims of sexual assault would be more fearful in walking the streets of their neighbourhood alone. This fear is justifiable but unhealthy. Steps such as Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) taken is intended to curb crimes from happening and improving public perception of safety in areas of high risk towards crimes (Lawlink NSW 1999).

Vicarious victimisation where people finding out or hear about a crime that happened to somebody they know is the biggest culprit in inhibiting fear beyond rational most times (Baur 2007). Fear of such might sometimes causes certain people to lock themselves in their property, cut of networks with neighbourhood as a result of paranoia and causing health issues (Baur 2007, Grabosky 1995). Media plays a role in contributing to vicarious victimisation where frequent report of crime activities being blown into proportion causing panic and unnecessary chaos in certain neighbourhoods or society (Grabosky 1995).

Research methodology
We classify research methods in various ways; however one of the most common distinctions is between qualitative and quantitative research methods. Quantitative methods involve science and experiment but qualitative method involve observation and question survey. Qualitative research methods are designed to help researchers understand people and the social and cultural contexts within which they live. Certain qualitative method example filling in questionnaire and interviews is not lie proof thus result yield is not accurate.

This research is designed to explore hypothesis of if gender, age and prior victimisation are related to the fear of crime. There are numerous methods for this research to be conducted. The most popular method which most researchers normally use is filling in of questionnaires by volunteers. Although this method helps the prevention of probing from surveyor and allows privacy to the participants, it causes issues such as surveys not completed appropriately, giving false answers or voided by less serious participants.

Another method would be mail surveys which would achieve a larger sample size from bigger geographical area. This method as well has its down side as the responses are usually slow or non-existent and time consuming. Most times, questionnaires are often misinterpreted which would cause the results to be highly inaccurate. The anonymity of respondent would pose other issues such as the accurateness of sample involved in the survey. Phone interview are costly and time consuming. Potential participants are usually more reluctant to discuss such sensitive topic over the phone and the potential of inappropriate responses are higher as participants could be disturbed by the issue raised in the surveys.

Indeed, there is many ways for this research to be conducted, but face to face interviews were preferred over other methods of interview for this particular research. Reasons for the method include the sensitivity of the topic which the surveyor could monitor the participant’s reaction and also have higher success rate in gaining completed surveys in a shorter amount of time.

The Griffith University research student conducted interviews, where the participants comprised of adults over the age of 18 who were mostly family members and friends of researchers. These were mostly face to face approach with a random sampling group. The probability of random sampling allows most potential participants to be involved.

The research yields the largest frequency for participants age less than or equal to 24 years old. This sample which is made up of friends and family members were expected from the researchers when the method of random sampling was adopted. The majority of respondent has an education level of at least a year 12 high school as well. This helped in the intellectual level for participants understanding the survey technicality of the survey.





As potential participants are approached, they are presented with an ‘information sheet’ which supplies information and reason for the survey. They are explained to that participation to the fear of crime survey is voluntary, thus consent is indicated by the completion of the form.

Most of the questions on the questionnaire were fixed-alternative form to allow easy coding of results. This method also minimises potential errors from participants.


Results / findings


Hypothesis 1: Is gender associated to fear of crime?

Group Statistics

Gender N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
Fear scale Female 486 12.6667 3.86045 .17511
Male 427 9.9813 3.82905 .18530

The empirical research has given the results of gender is associated with the fear of crime. It rejects the null hypothesis as the std. mean is less then ∑=1.




Independent Samples Test

Levene's Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means
F Sig. t df Sig.
(2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error
Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower Upper
Fear scale Equal variances assumed .156 .693 10.527 911 .000 2.68540 .25509 2.18477 3.18603
Equal variances not assumed 10.533 897.746 .000 2.68540 .25495 2.18503 3.18578


The probability of type 1 error in this case is less than .05 which signifies females are significantly more afraid of crime than their male counterparts. The probability of type 1 error rejects the null hypothesis where gender is not associated with the fear of crime. We find that female are more worried about personal safety and feels that crime these days are more serious than the television. The chi-square test below shows the error of .000 committed in column ‘Asymp.Sig (2-sided)’.


Chi-Square Tests

Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Exact Sig. (2-sided) Exact Sig. (1-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 79.024(b) 1 .000
Continuity Correction(a) 77.591 1 .000
Likelihood Ratio 81.177 1 .000
Fisher's Exact Test .000 .000
Linear-by-Linear Association 78.937 1 .000
N of Valid Cases 912

• Computed only for a 2x2 table
• 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 91.09.
Hypothesis 2: Is age associated to the fear of crime?


Correlations

Age Fear scale
Age Pearson Correlation 1 .190(**)
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
N 896 896
Fear scale Pearson Correlation .190(**) 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
N 896 922
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

The hypothesis of age is associated to fear of crime is accepted according to the pearson correlation ∑=1. This rejects the null hypothesis of age is associated to the fear of crime.

Hypothesis 3: Is prior victimisation associated with fear of crime?

Correlations

Victim of crime ever in lifetime? Fear scale
Victim of crime ever in lifetime? Pearson Correlation 1 .119(**)
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
N 909 908
Fear scale Pearson Correlation .119(**) 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
N 908 922
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).


From this result above, prior victimisation is associated to the fear of crime according to the pearson correlation ∑=1. This rejects null hypothesis of is prior victimisation associated with the fear of crime.






worry about property collapse * Gender Crosstabulation

Gender Total
Female Male
worry about property collapse 1.00 Count 216 200 416
% within Gender 44.4% 47.6% 45.9%
2.00 Count 270 220 490
% within Gender 55.6% 52.4% 54.1%
Total Count 486 420 906
% within Gender 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%



Conclusion
From the research, the results concluded from the empirical research rejects the entire null hypothesis. This means that fear of crime is related to the factors of gender, age and prior victimisation. However, the research sample is mostly confined to a suburb in Brisbane. The survey if expended to other regions could gain more significant result as groups of people are usually influence socially. Example of influences being a factor in successful survey sampling is that if a few household in a neighbourhood is fearful of burglary, the neighbourhood would normally be more prone to the fear of crime in that nature as well as influenced by the few household.

Research such as how fear of crime is related to different gender would be a useful study however, the question of socially desirable response or truth is a debate on if research data are reliable seems to still come around. Do respondents tell the truth or let their ego of a ‘socially desirable response’ (Sutton & Farrall 2005) impair (skew) the research results.

But, the reason as to fear of crime is related to variables such as gender, age and prior victimisation has much implication. Reviews from other researcher’s literatures shows that explanation for the connection between the stated variables tested in this research and fear of crime is related to human behaviour, influences and experiences in life. Humans are governed by their thought process which varies as they reach different ages and classical conditioning of events that happened to individuals. The gender different as well causes individuals to be brought up in different ways where male is always the physically stronger species compared to female contributes to the fear of crime.



Reference
Baur J. (2007) Fear of crime: The impact of age, victimisation, perceived vulnerability to victimisation and neighbourhood characteristics; Australasian Centre for Policing Research 2007

Dr Sanderson J. (2006) Fear of crime; Literature review for the Queensland Government Seniors Task Force; Research and Prevention Division, Crime and Misconduct Commission

Professor Fattah E.; Victimisation and Fear of Crime among the Elderly: A possible link? [Unedited. Paper as presented at Conference of 23-25 February 1993]; School of Criminology; Simon Fraser University

Robinson B. (1999) What You Don't Know Can Hurt You: Perceptions and Misconceptions of Harmful Behaviors Among Criminology and Criminal Justice Students. Western Criminology Review 2(1). [Online]. Available: http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v2n1/robinson.html.

Schafer J., Huebner B. & Bynum T. (2006) Fear of crime and criminal victimisation: Gender-based contrasts, Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 285-301, Elsevier

Stanko E. (1994) The commercialism of women's fear of crime; Beunel University, United Kingdom; International victimology : selected papers from the 8th International Symposium : proceedings of a symposium held 21-26 August 1994; Sumner C., Israel M., O'Connell M. and Rick Sarre (eds.); Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 1996

Sutton M. & Farrall S. (2005) Gender, socially desirable responding and the rear of crime; Are women really more anxious about crime? , British Journal of Criminology

Lawlink NSW (2007) Retrieved 2 August 2007, from http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au