Experience and expression in the fear of crime

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Experience and expression in the fear of crime

• Stephen Farrall, University of Keele,
• Emily Gray, University of Keele
• Jonathan Jackson, London School of Economics.
• Funded by UK Economic Social Research Council
  Award No. RES000231108

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Outline

• Introduction
• What is the fear of crime?
• Rationale of new measures of the fear of crime
• Who are the Worried-Well?
• Theorising the Worried-Well

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Introduction

• Origins dissatisfaction with standard measures
• Designed new measures
• Employed in BCS 2003-04
• Current project seeks to explore these measures
  in more detail

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What is the fear of crime?

• Those rare, but terrifying bursts of emotions
• A chair came flying over our hedge one night.
  Now I dont know where it came from cause I went
  shooting out to punch somebodys lights out and
  there was nobody there laughs. I felt
  threatened for about two seconds at the time but
  now, nah, it was somebody pissed as a fart, yeah
  lets toss this chair, I cant be bothered
  carrying it anymore, that sort of thing, you
  know. They probably stole it out a bar or
  something. Thats the end of the story.

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What is the fear of crime?

• Those niggling doubts
• SF One of the things Im interested in is what
  it is to worry about something, you know, its
  very easy to say people may worry about it but
  what does that actually mean? Is it something
  which prays on your mind all of the time, the
  worry that somebody may break into your home?
• D15 No, when you go out its the worry, like I
  say, you might go out and then youll start to
  wonder did I lock this?, did I lock that? but
  after youre out a while, it goes away, you
  forget. You forget about it till you come back
  you know or if youre maybe taking longer than
  you thought you would, youre hurrying back you
  know. Thats what it is to worry about it.

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What is the fear of crime?

• Longer-term, enduring social troubles
• I would say I was more, concerned with the cause
  than the whole structure of what seems to be,
  er, causing crime to be on the increase and to
  my mind its not just parental control, drugs,
  violence on television, lack of control by, oh,
  schools being allowed to control, having
  discipline. I think its a combination of all
  these factors, plus the limitations that some of
  the courts have the real danger of remand and
  let out on bail, pending a court case, theyve
  picked up new tricks and they go out and I think
  this, which is in progress at the moment, I think
  what judges are allowed to mete out in terms of
  punishment, the quality of punishments for
  certain crimes.

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Thus, the fear of crime is

• Short-lived experiences related to specific and
  immediate threats to security.
• Niggling doubts.
• Concerns expressed for others (vicarious fear).
  
• Fears in the absence of direct experience (it
  would be terrible if)
• Wider, more expressive, social concerns and
  troubles.

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Measuring the experiential dimension

• After the pilot work was completed these new
  questions were incorporated into the 2003-04
  British Crime Survey and fielded as part of the
  survey. The wording was as follows
• During the last 12 months, that is since date,
  have you ever felt worried about having your car
  stolen/having your home broken into and something
  stolen/being mugged or robbed ? yes/no.
• How many times have you felt like this in the
  past 12 months? raw count recorded.
• And on the last occasion you felt worried about
  having your car stolen/having your home broken
  into and something stolen/being mugged or robbed
  how worried did you feel? Would you say you
  felt not very worried/a little bit
  worried/quite worried/or very worried, with
  cannot remember as a hidden code.

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Measuring the expressive dimension

• Most of us worry at some time or other about
  being a victim of crime. Using one of the phrases
  on this card, could you tell me how worried you
  are about the following.
• The following crimes were then asked of in turn
• having your home broken into and something
  stolen?,
• being mugged and robbed?,
• having your car stolen?

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Top-line findings

• New and Old Questions Burglary
• New measure (experiential)
• Fearful in Not fearful in Total 
• past year past year
• Old measure (expressive)
• Worried (very, fairly 1369 (31) 2480
  (56) 3849 (87)
• and not very)
• Not worried (not at all) 27 (lt1) 567
  (13) 594 (14)
• Total 1396 (32) 3047 (69) 4443 (100)
• Cells are n (total ).

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Top-line findings

• 15-20 of respondents are UNWORRIED on both
  measures.
• 15-30 of respondents are WORRIED on both
  measures.
• 50-65 of respondents worry expressively but
  have not experienced fear-provoking episodes.
  These people we shall refer to as the WORRIED
  WELL.

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Who are the worried-well?

• They appear to be
• amongst the better off in society, home-owners,
  living in areas with high rates of professional
  employees, living in ethnically white
  neighbourhoods, living in areas with low levels
  of disorder and low levels of deprivation and in
  areas which had better experiences of long-term
  change.
• more victimised than the UNWORRIED, but less
  victimised than the WORRIED.
• a socially and criminologically middling sort?

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Some Possible Explanations?

• Middle class fear of falling? (Ehrenreich,
  1989, Taylor Jamison, 1999).
• Anxiety about wider social change? (Girling et
  al, 2000).
• The creation of fearing subjects? (Lee, 2001).
• Intrusion of crime into middle class life?
  (Garland, 2001).
• Winners and Losers in processes of change?

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Winners and Losers in Economic and Social Changes?

• There are several classes of intermediate groups
  between winners and losers.
• Do the Worried Well represent one of these
  intermediate groups?

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What have they won?

• Financial resources
• Live in own homes in professional areas
• Live in areas with better experiences of change,
  and low levels of deprivation/disorder
• Relatively safe from crime

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But

• Also now have something to lose
• Maybe more aware of what others have
• Upward mobility associated with increased
  insecurity
• Job insecurity a feature of middle class
• The losers represent a threat to safety

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Summary

• Weve looked at the structural or background
  factors in peoples experiences of worry.
• Jon and Emily will now focus more firmly on the
  perceptions of risks and how these relate to
  experience and expression of the fear of crime.