“The Fear of Crime”
Frank Schmalleger
Director of Justice Research Association
This 2 page insert speaks about statistics of crime and how people react to it.
According to Frank Schmallegers reading The Fear of Crime most people never believe that the violent crime rate is decreasing. Although the reason for the disbelieve ranges from personal experience to hear say or even some sort of media exchange of information, according to The Bureau of Justice Statistics this is how the average person associates their level of fear. However the passage states the average person between the ages of 15-25 in this country has a greater chance of accidentally dying rather than being murdered. This passage even speaks about Kathleen M. Fishers thoughts of University safety after the Columbine High School Shootings declaring them safer than ten years ago. I feel due to the fear of crime, people try to reduce their victimization By doing one of the three things avoidance behavior, being protective or buying insurance in case of being a victim of crime. Some examples of avoidance behavior would be avoiding unsafe areas and protective behavior would be purchasing a guard dog or simply installing a security system and finally insurance is self explanatory. Since these fear reducing agents do not completely put the public at ease there are cries for the police and government services to take action. I have notice the police and politicians have readily made accurate information regarding victimization risks and crime in your neighborhoods available. In some sort of way they feel by educating the people about crime or what to do is an inexpensive method of reducing fear. Some examples of these programs are neighborhood watch and Crime Prevention through Environmental Designs such as our new street cameras. I feel the media contributes to fear mostly because people generally get their information from watching television or reading the newspaper. I have found that the media...