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Summary Summaries of the Readings for "Crime and the City 1"
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Summaries of the readings for "Crime and the City 1". Each reading has been summarised by me.
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1.1. More than one “fear of crime” – VanderveenThe concept “fear of crime” has frequently been related to risk perception, worry, concern, fear of
victimization, and so on. Fear of crime is not only about crime in the strict legal sense, but is also about social
norms, incivilities, trust, and control.
However, according to Hacking, fear of crime and its meanings are not inevitable but a product of historical
events and social forces. Similarly, Lee argues that fear of crime has a contingent nature and its discourse has
an history: he carries out a genealogical analysis in which the role of the government is of primary interest.
Genealogy makes it possible to observe how “fear of crime” research becomes entangled in a web of
governmental strategies and techniques that have as their object the regulation of individuals, in this case the
regulation of “fearing subjects”. Lee also notes that statistics and surveys are the primary conditions of fear of
crime, along with a general interest in the public’s opinion and issues of wellbeing.
Fear of crime is a political symbol with an instrumental role. Fear of crime can be seen as an aspect of public
opinion: jurisprudential cases occasionally appeal to public opinion and the possibility of people taking the law
into their own hands when they are not satisfied with the court’s decision, while politicians and policy makers
appeal to public opinion to legitimize policy measures (mostly connected to a political agenda concerned with
“law and order” and “zero tolerance”). The importance of the public’s opinions, attitudes and perspectives is
evident within a democratic system, frequently explored through public opinion polls and surveys. Statistics
and surveys are conditions for the concept “fear of crime” as they enable politicians and policy makers to
“count and control”, or to “explain and tame”, so they play an instrumental role. This role is reflected by the
attention that fear of crime receives from state actors or (semi-)governmental institutions: several policy
agencies are devoting part of their time and money to the reduction of fear, leading many policy measures and
practical implementations that, in some cases, subsequently are evaluated in studies that attempt to check the
effectiveness of policy interventions.
Fear of crime is a prominent media issue: the press represent and help shaping public opinion both by keeping
the public informed by telling what is going on in the political arena and by expressing opinions about politics
and issues which shape public opinion. By reporting on law-enforcement and the criminal justice system, the
media are not just mirrors of the agreed social moralities, of a society or the public’s opinions, they are actively
reproducing the social and moral order. Since this order, the social moralities and values are not static, the
active reproduction of the social order by the news media depends on an interaction between the media and
the readers, or at least part thereof. This is part of the media agenda-setting hypothesis by Tipton: the press
or news media select and define issues and social problems and narrow the range of policy options, so they
have a role in establishing or changing the politicians’ and policymakers’ agendas. These in turn might be
forced to respond to the issues being covered by the media, so the mass media contribute to setting the
political agenda. However, politicians and policymakers use the news media as surrogates for public opinion,
especially in the absence of polls and based on the idea that the mass media have some insight into the public
mind.
Fear of crime as symbol is primarily used to set a specific public agenda that is concerned with crime control
and what has been called “law and order” and “zero tolerance”. The adoption of law and order policies is
explained through the democracy-at-work thesis, the mainstream interpretation of politicization of crime
adapted from Scheingold by Beckett. The thesis suggests that an increase in crime rates results in more
victimization and higher levels of fear, leading to punitive political demands on which politics react with law
and order policies. This sequence fits the idea that appeals to public opinion provide the ultimate ground of
legitimacy for a specific political and legislative agenda. However, Beckett admits this thesis does not hold in
reality: law and order policies show no constituent association with crime figures but are only loosely related,
and public beliefs do not provide clear and unambiguous support for current criminal justice policies. Instead,
crime-related issues, such as “fear of crime”, are socially and politically constructed: they depend on the socio-
historical context, public discourse and popular sentiment.
So, has “fear of crime” always been an issue in politics and policy and how exactly did “fear of crime” become
an issue in politics and a social problem? In the 1970s, fear of crime became a problem and a research subject
in itself. This was enforced by the introduction of the crime victim survey: crime does not only pertain to
victims of crime, but has to do with everybody. Also, measures to decrease fear of crime were taken and
evaluated.
Beckett: the definition of “fear of crime” is provided and shaped by the political elites, who tend to focus on
crime and drug use as consequence of insufficient punishment and control. Anxiety about social change and a
pervasive sense of insecurity are sentiments that can be channeled partly by scapegoating the underclass.
,Scheingold: he discusses the “myth of punishment”: bad people make this a dangerous world. Crime is used
as a symbol and refers to the politicization of crime, which began in the mid-1960s when crime became a
salient political issue.
The democracy-at-work thesis claims that the politicization of crime reflects the demands forced on political
leaders by the public. Harris observes that “the fear of crime, more than the fact of it, guaranteed that some
kind of action would be taken, for the public demand had to be met”. These demands are thought to originate
from an increasing crime rate and more people becoming a victim, which supposedly increased fear that led
the public to demand the politicians to do something about it; however, politicians simply take advantage of
the opportunities provided by the public’s state of mind, and elements of manipulation are also a part of the
process, e.g. through the media.
Concern about crime reflects concerns that transcend crime as such: fear of crime is symptomatic of even
greater fears caused by rapid and unwelcome social change. So, the initial precondition of a politics of law and
order is a public perception that crime threatens the social order, although other threats to society and other
personal insecurities are relevant as well. All this paves the road for “campaigning on crime”, both depicting
appealing portrayals of crime and providing a solution to the problem, namely more punitive crime control
measures. Generally, fear of crime has been used as argument in favor of a politics of law and order and zero
tolerance; a reduction in fear, derived from surveys and public opinion polls, is often used to indicate that a
policy measure has worked well. In other words, fear is the legitimation of surveillance, punishment and
punitive laws.
Fear of crime works out well for law enforcement officials, because more resources are directed to agencies of
criminal process, politicians, because crime is a good issue when campaigning, and private security
organizations and organizations arguing for the necessity of legal firearms ownership.
Fischer observes four key aspects of a Western layman‘s view of emotions:
- corporality: the conviction that emotions are inextricably bound up with the physical and that emotions
can be identified by bodily changes;
- irrationality: the distinction between passion and reason, incorporating the idea that impulses are far
away from rational reflection, are lacking logic, purpose and well-considered judgment;
- involuntarity: lacking control over one’s emotions;
- animality: emotions are connected with primitive or childish behavior.
Gordon and Davis identify the following basic types of fear:
- experiential fear: the experience or emotional state of fear, marked by the well-known bodily changes
and physiological characteristics like sweating and a rapid heartbeat. It refers to being afraid;
- propositional fear: fearing that something is or will be the case; it is called relational since it is related to
that “something”;
- reactive fear: being afraid of or frightened by something; it is fear as a result of something and therefore
relational as well.
Fear of crime has different meanings:
- fear of crime as a psychological construct: when an emotion term like fear is structurally analyzed, usually
these dimensions are found: evaluation or valence (the emotion terms can be categorized on a
pleasant/positive – unpleasant/negative dimension); activation (active – passive); dominance (strong –
weak); arousal (high – low).
- fear of crime as a personality trait: only a few studies have implied that “fear of crime” might be a
relatively stable trait of someone’s personality, similar to satisfaction with life, neuroticism or anxiety.
According to Gabriel and Greve, fear of crime might be situational (state) or dispositional (trait).
Situational fear of crim’ is a transitory state that varies within a person according to the situation at hand.
Dispositional fear of crime (the tendency to experience fear of crime in certain situations and the
tendency to react fearfully) is a relatively stable trait, and varies between people. People with such a
dispositional fear of crime will have more frequently experiential fear.
- fear of crime as an instrument of social control: several authors point to the use of fear of crime as an
instrument of social control. Individual choices are restrained by a framework of material and ideological
constraints, which embraces, among other things, shared assumptions about appropriate behavior. These
shared assumptions set the limits of appropriate (feminine, street-wise, street-smart et cetera) behavior;
when a person does not behave according to the appropriate rules, this has consequences for his or her
culpability when s/he becomes a victim. Groups that have supposedly less power -> women; the poor;
ethnic minorities; homosexuals report more fear; this fear is considered both a product of and it
reinforces their social positions. Fear is normalized: avoidance and precautionary tactics are part of
ordinary life. In this perspective, fear of crime is an instrument of social control.
, - fear of crime as aspect of the quality of life: a general assumption is that perceptions of safety, low fear
of crime and low crime rates are important ingredients of positive quality of life, as fear of crime might
have consequences in terms of mental distress, which erodes public health.
- fear of crime as emotion of danger: following Frijda, fear, whether elicited in an animal or in a human
beings, can be viewed as action tendencies that are functional adaptations to dangerous situations rooted
in the evolutionary history of humans. The increased vigilance suggests readiness; a readiness to respond
to danger, threat or aversive situations. In other words, when danger is imminent, fear can motivate
defensive behaviors such as fight or flight. This perspective suggests that fear and anxious apprehension
are emotional responses to danger or threat and motivate the individual to relieve the negative emotional
state.
- fear of crime as propositional attitude: in most studies about “fear of crime”, it is the propositional fear
that is investigated. A related distinction is made by Jackson: he argues for a broader attention to fear of
crime; researchers should not only focus on the experienced fear, but also on fear of crime as a symbol.
This latter fear of crime is called expressed fear: it refers to the broader social concerns that share social
meaning with crime, such as social change and disorder, or the violation of social norms. In addition,
specific crimes, the so-called signal crimes, are highly relevant for this type of fear. Innes and Fielding
specify signal crimes as “an incident that is disproportionately influential in terms of causing a person or
persons to perceive themselves to be at risk in some sense”. The incident is interpreted as a warning signal
that something is wrong or lacking and this signal influences how people construct beliefs concerning
other potential dangers and beliefs.
- fear of crime as fear of strangers: it is a fear of the unknown. Fear of strangers seems widespread and is
already present in young children, especially the fear of male strangers. When it is easier for someone to
be identified as a stranger, as someone who does not belong, as someone “out of place”, the fear of this
stranger is reinforced.
- fear of crime as infringement of territory: within environmental psychology, the notion of personal space
refers to an area with invisible boundaries surrounding a person’s body into which intruders may not
come; fear of crime in this view is the invasion of one’s personal space. The second important notion is
that of territory: different types of territory are defined by territorialities, for example varying in degrees
of privacy and the affiliation or accessibility allowed by each type. A primary territory is owned by a person
or group, functions at a permanently basis, and is controlled and central to daily live; a secondary territory
has moderate significance, for which control is less essential, is more likely to change, and is shared with
strangers; a public territory is an area open to anyone in good standing with the community. In this
perspective, fear of crime is the infringement of one’s territory; whether it is an invasion, a violation, i.e. a
temporary incursion into someone’s territory, or mere contamination, i.e. leaving something behind.
Another notion is that safety acts as a dissatisfier: since safety cannot be entirely guaranteed, fear of
crime is the logical result of the absence of total safety.
- fear of crime as part of city life: from the beginning, fear of crime has been related to larger (inner-) cities
and urban life. Hale suggests that fear of crime is maybe even better characterized as “insecurity with
modern living”, a “perception of disorder” or as “urban unease”. Stringer suggests that the city might be a
source of stress not because it is dirty or noisy, but because the physical environmental features and
arrangements encourage activities and behavior in which proximity between two persons is accidental
and without any particular significance to these two persons. Safety is a key component in the “rural idyll”,
just like a belief in friendliness of rural people and in the honesty, genuineness, mutual trust and integrity
of rural society. This clearly is in contrast to the notion of the indifferent city, in which people live
anonymously and accidentally run into each other.
1.2. Thresholds of Fear: Embracing the Urban Shadow – Ellin
Town building has always contended with the need for protection from danger. Protection from invaders was
in fact a principal incentive for building cities, many of whose borders were defined by vast walls or fences.
From being a relatively safe space, the city has – especially over the past 100 years – become associated more
with danger than with safety. The density of cities tends to intensify such dangers as civil unrest, crime and
contaminated air and water. We seek shelter from these dangers through a range of architectural and planning
solutions.
Renaissance-1960s: since the metaphors for cities were the organism and the machine, urban interventions
were conceived as surgical operations or broken part repairs, which also began to incorporate the picturesque
in the latter half of the 19 th century -> Haussmann Paris). In the early 20 th century, the landscape changed with
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