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Notes Crime & The City (english)
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Samenvatting: Crime & the City IThe overall aim of the Crime and the City module (3 ECTS and 6 ECTS) is to provide students with an
understanding of the dynamics of the city (with a particular focus on Brussels) and how space is
relevant to criminology. Space influences the lives, practices, experiences and emotions of citizens,
while at the same time being created and recreated daily by its inhabitants, commuters, users and
visitors. These processes are studied in their relation to crime, fear, disorder and urban conflicts. The
problems are analyzed taking into account the broader processes of globalization, social polarization
and cultural fragmentation. At the theoretical level, the course aims to confront, critique and
supplement dominant criminological thinking by incorporating insights from the urban studies
literature.
The central theme of Crime and the City 1 is fear. This concept will be critically discussed, dissected in
its various meanings and connections to the city. Several aspects of fear will be addressed: 1) the
relationship between fear and space; 2) fear of the other (gender and ethnicity); 3) labeling,
representation, stigmatization of neighborhoods; 4) the politics of fear, the relationships between fear
and securitization; and 5) the relationships between situational crime prevention and fear. The course
will primarily discuss the case of Brussels, but will also compare it to international examples from Latin
America (especially Brazil), Palestine, and Israel. The required and supplementary texts referenced in
this syllabus are available on the Canvas site for this course. The course requires the active
participation of the students. This participation consists of reading the texts used in the lectures (see
reader) and preparing the group assignment.
Fear has consequences on the design of cities. Public spaces are over-securitized because of e.g.
terrorism.
,Session 1 – Crime and fear: dissecting the fear of crime and its relationship to
space
What is fear on crime?
Creation of the concept
Originated in the 1960s - Since then: rapidly growing body of research in criminology
- Is a new concept that has been invented, what happened that this could be the case?
Could develop under conditions:
- Increased knowledge of statistics, surveys of crime victims and money to do research
- Use of the concept by politicians
- Significant media coverage of the topic
- Social changes with increased public interest in "welfare"
- Media was eager to his results, made there newspapers more likeable
- All together has influenced the concept of fear of crime
Since then: rapidly growing body of research in criminology and other domains.
Different concepts used next to each other:
- Fear of crime
- Feelings of insecurity
- Unsafety
➢ The concept has been used and measured in all kinds of ways, all kind of terms were used next to
each other, without being clear, not clearly defined
The result: the creation of an overarching, umbrella concept
Defining fear of crime
- Okunola and Amole (2011), defined unsafety by using not only fear of crime but also other
factors, such as perception of personal vulnerability and collective efficacy. However, a
multidimensional definition of the sense of unsafety construct as an individual and collective
concept is still missing in the literature. …
- “… fear of crime mainly refers to a negative mental state in reaction to victimization (that is,
being a victim of crime)… (Valera and Guàrdia, 2014)
- things besides crime and victimization, such as ill health, economic uncertainty, feelings of
anomie or pessimistic feelings about the future, sudden social change, general urban unrest,
and ontological insecurity
- Feelings of insecurity are considered as an individual, rational (and more or less correct)
estimate of the risk to become a victim of crime
- It is necessary to distinguish between different meanings of fear. In general, fear comprises
cognitive, affective and behavioral facets. Furthermore, fear of crime may also refer to concern
about crime as a serious problem for a community or society (Skogan 1993). Disentangling the
relationship between victimization and fear of crime, therefore, requires elaborate measures
of fear of crime
All kind of definitions on fear of crime.
,Critiques on the concept
Criminologist played a big role in creation and keeping the idea, but there were groups of criminologist
that criticized the use of the concept.
- In 60; fear is coming out
- Now (since the 80 in UK/US, in BEL 2000-2002): crime numbers are going down, this are the
crime numbers of the traditional types of crimes, but it’s not the case, especially with covid
(transitions of street crime to online crime)
- When they started measuring the lowering crime, the measurements of the fear of crime
didn’t follow this trends at all. -> gap between real situation of crime and the fear people have
for the phenomenon
Until recent criminologists paid too little attention to properly defining the concept of ‘fear’ and its
relationship to ‘crime’
- Confusion between fear, risk, safety, security
- Fear variates by type of crime
What we actually ‘know’ about fear of crime is questionable (Farral and Ditton, 1999)
- recent reviews of the methodologies employed by these surveys (especially with regards to
the questions used to measure fear) have suggested that the fear of crime is routinely over-
estimated. (Farrall and Ditton 1999)
Lots of discussion on the concept and how it’s been measures. Mainly in a classic way, not clear in fact
of what they are measuring.
- Recent research:
o the relationship is an assumption that is not met = very important, there is a
relationship! But a complex one, not a causal one.
o It is not determined by the nature of things, not inevitable
o Seen as a fact, not as a construction (Vanderveen, 2006)
Critiques on operationalization and measurement
The operationalization measurement of the concept is inadequate
- Very often measured by surveys
- Weak conceptualization of ‘fear of crime’ (see definitions)
Examples of survey questions
Example of questions in surveys:
- Do you ever feel unsafe? (always, often, sometimes, rarely, never)
- Do you avoid certain places in your community because feeling unsafe
- Do you avoid taking public transport because you don’t consider it safe?
- How safe do you feel walking alone in this area after dark?
- How safe would you feel being out alone in your neighborhood after dark?
- Is there any place around here where you feel unsafe walking at night?
Internationally used in all kind of surveys, but are not neutral questions
, By asking the question here u define the environment as unsafe. U push people in some kind of way
of answering (in all this questions), u create a suspicion of fear, there might be fear, there might be
crime,…
In the first question: it’s too broad. U can answer it in many different ways.
Results of these kind of measurements
- Not going down the same rates as crime is going down
- Blue: man and woman, question is about safety: do you feel safe to
walk in your area?
o Light blue: men
o Dark blue: woman
o All over these countries woman are more fearful
Recent insights
- Use of mixed methods =needed!
- Survey + going to the field
- Combine these!
“Nearly two in three (64%) women avoid going to places where there are no other people around – and
nobody to help if they were assaulted or harassed – compared with 36% of men. 41% of women avoid
being alone with someone they know, for fear of assault or harassment, compared with 25% of men. “
(FRA, 2021, 4)
The way it is conceptualized acts like a fishing net in which a whole range of diverse meanings are
collected.
- Instead of ‘fear of crime’, study fear!
- Keep in that concept, not make it immediately ‘fear of crime’
- In this course: fear (of crime)
Why study fear and the (link to the) city?
Fear and the city
Protection from invaders was principal incentive for building (walled) cities
(Ellin, 2001 -> see text Ellin = extra, not mandatory!)
We should see the city as something that was formally important to protect
people. But now cities are often connected to fear.
Picture : Uruk is thought to be the first city that developed in Mesopotamia around 4000 BC
- Cities like this does not exist anymore
- It’s a reconstruction
But not the only motive: “Since the first urban settlements in Mesopotamia around 4000 BC, cities have
acted as gigantic information exchanges; the dynamic interaction of people in the dense, cramped
metropolis has generated the ideas and techniques, revolutions and innovations that have driven
history.” (Wilson, 2020)
- Reasons for the big cities is not only to protect people, but it was the place were information
exchanges were done, all kind of people and nationalities meeting each other
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