Fear of Crime Among Young Women in Inner London - Research Paper Example

Fear of crime among young women (18-25) in inner London Background Fear of crime is a study in criminology that refers to the fear in people of being a victim of crime then actually being victim of one. This sort of fear is more related to and has occurred in western settings. This fear is not just a feeling but can also affect the person psychologically and sometimes can cause physical health problems as well. (Hale, 1996) These feelings usually develop when people feel crime rate rising and they are insecure about walking into streets. The research location is aimed at inner London. Inner London is part of great London and is defined for statistical purposes. It is one of the richest areas of London and England. Despite the fact that this area has one of the most expensive streets in the Europe and have many rich people living there, the poverty and crime are also the known reasons for its reputation. It is considered one of the most vulnerable in terms of street and gangs crimes. These crimes are related to violence, theft, drugs and robbery. (Nicholas et al., 2005) These crimes give rise to number of people who feel unsafe and have fear of being victim of these crimes. These people include both men and women, young and old. Researchers do agree that there is no single way of reducing the fear of crime among people. There have been number of campaigns in London to spread awareness about reality and amount of crimes. These campaigns have put a positive effect on people. Many people feel save and very safe now, however the number of people still having fear of crime are considerably more than people who feel safe. (Ferraro and Grange, 2007) This particular research proposal is focused on young women in inner London who have fear of crimes. Research has shown that largest number of population is young single mothers, who fall victim to fear and then mental health. The issues with mental health results in less movement and social activity around the neighborhood.(Whitley and Prince, 2005) Many reasons for this fear are proven to be indirect and exaggerated information from the media, neighbors, small gangs etc. (Schlesinger and Tumber, 1994) Another study showed that fear of crime among women is higher than men. And among women, 16-30 years of age women feel most unsafe while walking in streets. The study also concluded that women feel more harassed which men do not, and that increases their fear of crime. (Vanderveen, 2006) Another study on women showed that fear of crime is more among the women who have been victim of it in the past. These women are homeless and one of the reasons for their homelessness has been violence and that generates and increases their fear of being a victim again. (Coston and Finckenauer, 1993) It is agreed that women feel more fear than men, a report showed that women report three times more fear than men, and actually become victim of crime three times less than men. The reason for increased fear among women is said to be social and physical vulnerability (Stanko, 1994) Problem statement The aim of this research is to know the real reasons behind the fear of crime in inner London among young women (ages 18-25). Academia has lot of literature on fear of crime among women; however this particular research is focused on inner London women. One of the reasons is that inner London has reported reduction in crimes in the past few years, however number of women still feeling unsafe has not decreased. (Gibbons, 2004) This could be due to number of reasons, as some researchers agree that exaggerated information from the media and news from other sources make these women more fearful. The government tries to convince on the reality and number of crimes that are actually taking place, but the media hype has done little to the success of these campaigns. Other reasons are clear as well such as harassment of women, while men won’t feel much on getting just harassed on the street; a women can take much more negative effect and can become victim of fear for any possibility of crime. These are just the few perceptive reasons that I feel can be cause of women falling victim to such fear, however the real reasons are unknown as there is little literature on inner London young women who have this problem. The objectives of research are following, To come up with real reasons behind fear of crime among young women of inner London Access and confirm the reasons exist in literature such as media exaggeration, indirect information, physical and social vulnerability of women To know how many of women have actually been victim of crime in the past Find out if any new reasons exist for this fear Come up with solutions to reduce the number of women feeling unsafe Research Paradigm The research paradigm I have chosen for this particular research is qualitative research through semi structured interviews. This research methodology is preferred over ethnographic research and focus groups. I want to come up with a new research that explores the reasons behind fear of crime among women and also to suggest the solutions. This is not possible with ethnographic research and focus groups as I am not asking an exact question rather statements ate being tested. Another reason for qualitative data gathering and interviews is that being a researcher I want to be open to options of coming up with more research objectives to conclude a better research. Why interviews are the best option for this research will be discussed in the next section. In this section I will explain why ethnographic research and focus groups are not best for my research. There are certain problem associated with ethnographic research and focus groups. These issues and limitations have helped me decide my method to be interviews rather than ethnographic observations and focus groups. First of all ethnography and focus groups are not suited for this research due to the settings of inner London. It is not possible for me to be part of the settings as this is not an organizational research rather an environment related research and I can’t be part of it. Focus groups are also not suited for this research as problem statement is not very clear, also fear of crime is an individual problem, it might be very hard to get women in a group who all have this issue and are ready to talk it in front of other women they don’t know. The research paradigm is focused on gathering the full picture of respondents including background etc, this is not possible with just being an observer in focus groups and observations. There are also issues of shortage of time for completion of this research, and ethnographic research and focus groups do ask for period of time to compile a more reliable research. There have been some researches which have expanded to 1 to 3 years of time with more than 20 respondents. There can also be issues of biasness if researcher tries to influence focus group discussions and note observations according to his/her own mindset. Interviews In this section I will explain in detail semi structured interviews and why they are best for this research. A semi structured interview basically is more like a conversation; it is less formalized with comparison to structured interviews, and it allows new questions to be asked during the conversation. (Kvale, 1996) The reason for choosing this type of data collection is to come up with new reasons for fear of crime. This method also allows gathering as much information as possible about respondents’ backgrounds, culture, settings, and customs. These interviews are aimed at understanding world of respondents rather than asking them bias questions to confirm something. These interviews will help shape up the research and can always allow improvements in the results of research. Another choice was to completely go for unstructured interviews which do not have any pre prepared question, but I also need some statistics so that is why semi structured interviews are chosen. Some of the questions in these interviews will be pre prepared such as asking name, location, age, and other details of person; however rest of the interview will be more related to smooth flow of conversation to come up with real reasons behind fear of crime. There are some advantages and disadvantages of this data gathering method, I will list them below and then detail why it will benefit Fear of Crime research to have interviews as primary data collection method Advantages of interviews Interviews are very useful when research question is complex, it can be explained to the respondents Researcher can always ask questions that go deep into the research and can attain detail answers The response rate can be very good as respondents agree themselves to the interview and are willing to cooperate In case of sensitive issues, respondents feel secure and safe with face-to-face interviews rather than filling out a questionnaire or being observed Disadvantages of interviews Can be time consuming Don’t work well if researcher requires more respondents in less time, only a limited number of interviews can be obtained in a certain time. If the researcher is not unbiased, he/she can prejudice the answers by asking close ended questions and testing statements (Opdenakker, 2006) (King, 1994) From the above brief, one can see clear advantages and disadvantages of these interviews. However they are best for this research because it is a sensitive topic and respondents will feel more secure in one to one interview setting rather than being part of the group or being observed. Another reason for choosing interview is that there is lack of literature on inner London women who have fear of crime that is why research problem is in raw form, interview will be the only way to make it sharper and get into in-depth research question. Research shows that respondents who are either the victim or witness o f a crime feel most secure and at ease during one to one interview. (Fisher et al., 1989)Although these women are not victims of crimes but they hold fear of it, and that is why interview is the best technique for data gathering. Sampling According to 2001 census data, there are more than 200,000 women living in London between the ages of 15-24. However there are no statistics to show how many of these women have complained of fear of crime. There are also no hard and fast rules on the sampling in the ethnography; however it is recommended that researcher should choose the respondents that fit the profile as defined in the proposal. (Krueger and Casey, 2008) The aim is to gather data by getting some information from council and police regarding the women who would be interested in answering these questions and taking part in the research. A few women will be enough as after that snowball sampling will be used. In this type of sampling researcher will ask the respondents to recommends someone else who would be interested in this sort of research and answering questions. It is quite possible that these women know other women who are also victim of fear of crime. It is also expected that there might be some groups who actively conduct campaigns where these women participate to reduce their fears, those groups can also be accessed depending in the recommendation of these women. Access to respondents As defined earlier that access to respondents at the start will be tried by accessing police and council and asking them about such women. As police and council daily get complains from such women and are involve in compiling data and starting campaign to reduce fear of crime, they will be the best access point to reach respondents. If not enough respondents are found by this method than snowball sampling technique will be used to access more respondents through referrals. Although there is no research on how to access people with fear of crime. But some research shows that accessing people who are actually victim of crime is though proper way, such as council, police, or doctors, so they know that you won’t breach their trust and you are an authentic researcher (Kilpatrick and Acierno, 2003). This is why I have decided to go through accessing them through council/police reports, which have names of these people who complain about having fear for being victim of crime but are actually not. Ethical implication This research has ethical implications as this is a sensitive topic. Ethical implications are very important while conducting social science research as researcher has to consider all the factors that can be cause unethical research and behavior on his/her part. I have decided to make it very clear to the respondents that their names, location, age and any other information they require will be kept confidential and only code names or numbers will be sued to define their responses. This is very important as this is a sensitive research and many respondents will only agree to participate in the research if only confidentiality agreement is present. The decision about recording and videotaping the conversations will also be decided on the permission of the respondents. The researcher is hoping that these precaution steps will help reduce any ethical issues. References COSTON, C. & FINCKENAUER, J. 1993. Fear of crime among vulnerable populations: Homeless women. Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, 2, 1-21. FERRARO, K. & GRANGE, R. 2007. The Measurement of Fear of Crime*. Sociological Inquiry, 57, 70-97. FISHER, R., GEISELMAN, R. & AMADOR, M. 1989. Field test of the cognitive interview: Enhancing the recollection of the actual victims and witnesses of crime. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 722-727. GIBBONS, S. 2004. The costs of urban property crime. Economic Journal, 441-463. HALE, C. 1996. Fear of crime: A review of the literature. International review of Victimology, 4, 79-150. KILPATRICK, D. & ACIERNO, R. 2003. Mental health needs of crime victims: Epidemiology and outcomes. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 16, 119-132. KING, N. 1994. The qualitative research interview. KRUEGER, R. & CASEY, M. 2008. Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research, Pine Forge Pr. KVALE, S. 1996. Interviews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing, Sage Publications, Inc. NICHOLAS, S., POVEY, D., WALKER, A. & KERSHAW, C. 2005. Crime in England and Wales 2004/2005. STATISTICAL BULLETIN-HOME OFFICE RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT AND STATISTICS DIRECTORATE, 11. OPDENAKKER, R. Year. Advantages and disadvantages of four interview techniques in qualitative research. In, 2006. SCHLESINGER, P. & TUMBER, H. 1994. Reporting crime: The media politics of criminal justice. No.: ISBN 0-19-825838-0, 294. STANKO, E. Year. The Commercialisation of Women’s Fear of Crime. In, 1994. VANDERVEEN, G. 2006. Interpreting fear, crime, risk, and unsafety: conceptualisation and measurement, Boom Koninklijke Uitgevers NL. WHITLEY, R. & PRINCE, M. 2005. Fear of crime, mobility and mental health in inner-city London, UK. Social Science & Medicine, 61, 1678-1688.  Read More