Fear of Crime can be understood as a risk or fear of being a victim of a crime. Fear of crime is a sincere social problem that gets affected by a number of factors, out of which Vulnerability is an important one to discuss. For this presentation, the selected reading is an article written by Martin Killias on the subject of Fear of Crime and Vulnerability. In the presented report, the focus will be made upon to the key points of the subjective reading along with critical analysis of the same.
The selected reading stated that there are implicit variables that affect the level of fear of crime in people. Author has reflected three key factors on which fear seems to depend. These factors are the following:-
The entire three aforementioned factors have their social, physical, and situational components. Starting with the first factor, this is to be stated that exposure to risk influence the fear of crime in people. The more exposure to risk, lead more fear of crime. If to talk about a physical aspect of this factor, this is to mention that due to age and gender, different people have a different level of exposure to risk. Further, there are many social factors too cause which people from different social background and conditions have different exposure to risk (Rader, Cossman and Porter, 2012). This can be understood with the help of an example. For instance, the social factor such as late night visit enhances the chances of predatory crime. Other social factors such as the risky nature of the job and economic status of people are also there cause of which different people in society have a different level of exposure to risk.
In addition to the physical and social vulnerability, situational vulnerability also plays an important role to check and increase the exposure of fear among people. For instance, people in a society with terrorism have more exposure and possibility of happening of a crime in comparison to people who live in a safe society.
Moving towards the other factor, which is a loss of control; this is to say that different people have a different kind of safety measures against a risk. This is the reason that not every person feels the same level of fear in respect to a crime. The more control over a risk reduces the fear of crime. There are some physical, social, and situational elements, which affect the effectiveness of control/defense measures. Firstly, the physical elements such as age and gender affect the level of defense that a person has in against of a crime. For an example, in comparison to male, females have less control on the happening of a crime or it may say that females have less defense to deal with such issues and therefore females have more fear of crime in comparison to males. Some social factors again such as loneliness and respectability are there which have an influence on the ability of a person to avoid risk or to deal with the same in an effective manner. At last, many times a person loses his /her control and become unable to prevent the crime in some situations. For instance, in the darkness, a person often loses his/her control. Many other situations are there that must be considered while checking the fear of crime among the public.
The last but obviously not least factor is the seriousness of consequences (Doran and Burgess,, 2012). A similar crime can lead to different consequences to people, depending on the physical, social, and situational components. The more serious consequences of a crime lead more fear. Physical factors such as age, gender, and sex affect the seriousness of the crime. For instance, in comparison to young people, elder people have more dangerous consequences of a road accident and this is the reason that they afraid of the same more in comparison to young ones. In many of the cases, social due to social elements, a crime affect different people in different ways. Similarly further, situational elements also affect the seriousness of the consequences of a crime.
The aforementioned discussion consists of key points of the chosen readings. Now, to make the critical analysis of the reading, this is to mention that the arguments of the author seem to be correct as one can relate the same with real-life examples. In support of the argument of the author, this is to say that all the three factors are very important while determining the risk or fear of crime. Because of gender, females have more exposure to crimes such as rape and physical harassments (Cossman and Rader, 2011). Gender is lead factor cause of which females have lack of effective defense against a crime. Further, the other physical component such as age affects the seriousness of consequences, as elder people are less able to deal with such issues. Not only the physical factor but also the rest of the two factors i.e. social and situational components plays their vital role in influencing the level of fear of crime among people (Ditton and Farrall, 2017).
By reading the crime news, it is far clear that people, who live isolated, are very fearful regarding happening of crime. Elder people who live in old age homes have more fear of robbery than to younger ones and even to (Ceccato and Bamzar, 2016) another elder who lives with their family because they have back up plans in cases of such crimes. On the other hand, the cases of rape are coming out on a daily basis in which 54% of total victims are females of 18-34 years (Rainn.org, 2018). These statistics prove that the factors mentioned by the author in the subjective reading are not baseless and have their real-world implications. However, these factors are not sufficient in the individual conditions and can be helpful to check the fear of crime at a micro level.
Conclusion
To conclude the learning and critical analysis on the reading, this is to say that although many of the proves are there which agrees with the arguments of the author, yet the factors provided by the author are not complete and cannot be apply as it is to the real world when it comes to the individual scenario. Therefore, the factors mentioned by author have their limited applicability and they are incomplete without each other.
References
Ceccato, V. and Bamzar, R., 2016. Elderly victimization and fear of crime in public spaces. International criminal justice review, 26(2), pp.115-133.
Cossman, J.S. and Rader, N.E., 2011. Fear of crime and personal vulnerability: Examining self-reported health. Sociological Spectrum, 31(2), pp.141-162.
Ditton, J. and Farrall, S. (2017) The Fear of Crime. USA: Routledge.
Doran, B.J. and Burgess, M.B., 2012. Why Is Fear of Crime a Serious Social Problem?. In Putting Fear of Crime on the Map(pp. 9-23). Springer, New York, NY.
Killias, M., 1990. Vulnerability: Towards a better understanding of a key variable in the genesis of fear of crime. Violence and victims, 5(2), p.97.
Rader, N.E., Cossman, J.S. and Porter, J.R., 2012. Fear of crime and vulnerability: Using a national sample of Americans to examine two competing paradigms. Journal of Criminal Justice, 40(2), pp.134-141.
Rainn.org. (2018) Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics. [online] Available from: https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence
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