Communities Response to Disorder, Crime, and Fear of the Crime - Essay Example

Crime, Disorder, and Communities Communities Response to Disorder, Crime, and Fear of the Crime 1. Introduction Controversy surrounds the connection between incivilities, crime, and fear of crime contained in the article of Wilson and Kelling (1982) as it argues that there is a linear relationship between crime and neighbourhood decline. Fear of crime has come to be regarded as a predicament in its own right since the impact of crime and disorder in communities can destabilize the conception of well-built communities. Disorder has a propensity to promote withdrawal from community affairs significant to the rise of people involved in crime and deviance. However, communities are assumed capable of informal social control thus; communities are expected to provide the means to address crime and maintain a sense of mutual regards and the obligations of civility. This paper will discuss the impact of crime and the link between incivilities, decline, and fear of crime. More importantly, it will critically discuss the role of communities and its capacity to invoke informal control of social disorder. Finally, it will conclude with the overall findings of the research. 2. Literature Review 2.1 Impact of Crime Community and individuals are not only susceptible to crime victimization but also fearful about crime. Fear of crime has come to be considered as a problem in its own right, diverse from real crime and victimization, and unique policies have been developed that intend to decrease levels of fear. Fear of crime comes from the perceptions of disorder in the local community and it is a term is criminology that is used primarily to refer to behaviour that is not necessarily criminal but is considered by the community as non-standard behaviour (Dingwall 2006:23). Carrabine (2004) explains that the British Crime surveys now frequently study the levels and character of this fear, sorting and assessing the disturbing reactions driven by crime. The BCS shows that those who are most troubled about crime tend to be women, the poor, those in unskilled occupations, and those living in the inner cities, council estate areas, or areas with high levels of disorder. The young are most concerned about car-related theft. Women, particularly older women are far more apt to feel insecure at home or out alone after dark than men. People in partly skilled or unskilled occupations are found to be more fearful than those in skilled occupations, while those who consider themselves in poor health or with disability also have heightened levels of concern about crime. (p.123). Black and Asian respondents are also found to be far more worried about all types of crime than white respondents are. In another national survey Carrabine (2004) added, ethic minorities, nearly one in four black and Asian respondents reported being worried about being racially harassed (p.123). The impact of crime and disorder in communities is a difficulty that can weaken the establishment of compassionate, sturdy communities, and fear of crime for this reason is seen as “a problem in itself” (Karn 2007, p.20). Another is the concern with social exclusion and victimization, particularly within deprived, and excludes communities. In such neighbourhoods, chronic rates of crime, disorder, violence and victimization multiply the unbearable experiences and disturbed “life chances of residents” (Squires and Stephen 2005:20). 2.2 Links Between Incivilities, Decline and Fear of Crime Since the publication of Wilson and Kelling’s article “Broken Windows” where they argued that there is a “linear relationship between incivilities, crime, and neighbourhood decline” (Hancock 1999:5), critical discussion concerning the link between incivilities and fear of crime spread out. According to Wilson and Kelling (1982), disorder and crime typically are intricately correlated in the community level, in a kind of developmental progression (p.2) which authors like Skogan supported by articulating “disorder” is also linked to fear of crime and possibly related to crime (Hancock 1999:5 referring to Skogan 1990). The reason behind these views is the actuality that social psychologist and the police tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left un-repaired; all windows will soon be broken. This is because a broken window is a pointer that “no one cares” thus breaking more windows is fine (Wilson and Kelling 1982:3). To test the theory, a Stanford psychologist back in 1969, parked a car in the street of Bronx without a license plate with the hoods up. At the same time, he also places a car with same description in the street of Palo Alto, California. Amazingly, ten minutes after the car was abandoned, the car in the street of Bronx was attacked by vandals and soon after, a family of three (father, mother, and a young son) took the car’s radiator and battery. As expected, in a very short time, all valuables had been removed and the random destruction began. Windows were shattered; parts torn off, upholstery ripped, and children made it their playground. However, one notable thing about this experiment is the fact that most of the adult vandals were well-dressed and clean-cut whites. Another is the fact that for more than a week the car in Palo Alto was left untouched, but when the Stanford psychologist shattered part of it with a sledgehammer, passer-bys joined in for the fun. Soon after, the car had been destroyed and again, the vandals are primarily decent whites (Wilson and Kelling 1982:3). Disorder tends to encourage withdrawal from the community affairs and distress the housing market since people contentment with the area declines. A disordered neighbourhood Hancock (1999) added are more likely to attract and admit people involved in crime and abnormalities (p.5). Crime and disorder were not just misconstrued behaviours but rather, behaviours which were inept of being understood and the rationale behind them remained relatively obscure (Squires and Stephen 2005:23). Research in the United States according to Dingwall (2006) reveals that within communities there is agreement on what behaviours are constituted as disorderly, despite of ethnicity, class or other features. Much of this disorder is alleged to be associated with both legal and illegal drugs (p.23). Young people appeared to be bearing a sizeable fraction of the culpability for social disorganization, crime and disorder and, chiefly anti-social behaviour. It has in recent years according to Squires and Stephen (2005), become routine to state that petty crime and disorder are in the core activities of the young and that public fretfulness about crime append itself in great measure, in adults at any rate to these incivilities (p.25). However, it is hoped that comforting communities will also promote more community collaboration and contact with local agencies. This perception of the role of crime and the fear of crime in obstructing the building of strong communities and community-authority relations is crucial to ways in which issue of security and encouragement have become so fundamental to local governance, not only those engaged in the governance of security but in urban control more extensively (Karn 2007:20). Disorder is shown beyond all doubt to contribute to the ‘spiral decay’ (Farrel and Pease 2001:188) in society in general. Therefore, in neighbourhoods with higher crime levels, disorder was linked more sturdily with crime than were other features of the areas (Farrel and Pease 2001 as per Kelling and Coles 1996). For chronic victims, disorder is often complemented by crime that is more severe. It creates emotional strain as well as crime itself. Consequently, when they happen simultaneously, the effects are shattering. Since there are substantiations linking disorder to crime, then we can presume that crime and fear of crime are two major problems in our society (Farrel and Pease 2001:188). The fact that disorder can lead to crime, and the architect of disorder often go on to carry out more grave crimes and develop criminal careers, which has a massive psychological impact on chronic victims, the authorities should ponder on tackling the problem at the individual level. Moreover, if courts convict offenders of disorder, it is more likely that we can get rid of the root causes of crime. Another is the relationship between police and the community as the police would be able to pay more attention to the history of individual victims of crime, particularly repeated victims. This is clearly worthwhile from the evidence of the trauma suffered by repeated victims as disorder and the fear it generates are serious problems that warrant the attention in and of themselves. Disorder disheartened communities, destabilize commerce, leads to the desertion of public spaces, and weakens public confidence in the capacity of government to work out problems; fear compel citizens further from each other and paralyses their customary, order sustaining responses, compounding the impact of disorder (Farrel and Pease 2001:190). 2.3 Communities and Crime Community, according to Karn (2007) is a conflicting and greasy theory that is so unoriginal in a way futile for sociological analysis but with a daily prevalence that suggests a political and sociological significant to identities and social networks beyond expression (p.18). Communities are assumed capable of informal social control and of providing social support, a power that is understood to have declined with economic and structural change, and to be the means of re-including those debarred or alienated from social institutions. Therefore, communities are liable to provide the means to address crime and restore order and a sense of security and mutual support, predominantly in areas of social exclusion. It will serve as a shield for the most terrible consequence of market economics and an arbitrating institution for the state and individuals (Karn 2007:19). More significantly, communities are viewed as an agent of a moral accord, predominantly in areas of crime and disorder. Consequently, strengthening communities in areas of social inclusion means confronting crime, disorder, and fear of crime (Karn 2007:20). In a global survey conducted by Farrel and Pease (2001) to measure the social cohesiveness in the neighbourhood, respondents were asked about whether people in the community mostly helped each other or mostly went their own way. The results of the survey reveals that citizens in the most developed countries are generally more satisfied with the performance of their local police, less fearful of street crime and more often observe their neighbours as helpful. However, comparing the opinion of non-victims, one time victims, and repeat victims reveals a conspicuously consistent pattern. Victims are less satisfied with the police, and are more fearful and less trustful of their neighbours than non-victims are. These tendencies are more pronounce among repeat victims than among one-time victims. In many respects, the attitudes of repeat victims in the West resemble those non-victims in developing countries. Repeat victims are less inclined to report subsequent incidents to the police, and that repeat victims who report are less often satisfied with the police response. These findings suggest that the reduced level of satisfaction of repeat victims with overall police performance is rooted in negative personal experiences with the police. It is also plausible that repeat victimization experiences generate and increased fear of crime (p.36). People experienced recurring victimization have unassailable reasons to be more anxious about future victimization than others do since there are more aware of their defenceless position. However, the relationship between victimizations and perceptions of social cohesiveness does not necessarily imply that victimization experiences erode social trust. The casual relationship might work the other way since neighbourhoods that are less socially integrated are known to undergo from higher levels of crime. In a range of situations, social integration and crime will reciprocally strengthen each other. The connection does at any rate highlight that victims and repeat victims specifically, feel socially isolated more often than non-victims do. Moreover, the joint results on recurring victimization substantiate that recurrent victims have unusual outlook concerning the police such as arresting the offender and offering concrete protection, which the police often fail to meet (p.38). The phenomenon of recurring victimization is in itself a strong argument for targeting crime prevention effort at victims. The bad services delivered to recurent victims are wasted opportunities for successful crime prevention and detection. For the citizens involved, these unconstructive experiences have an isolating effect. Since they have a tendency to be more fearful of crime and repeatedly live in less socially integrated community, recurrent victims are in danger of misplacing their trust in institutions and the community in most cases, as well their respect of the law (p.47). In high crime areas in the UK, a focus on repeat victimization is readily converted into a community initiative. The benefit over conventional community approaches to crime is that the programme is ingrained in real events suffered by citizens. Crime prevention efforts and victim-support activities are brought together through a focus on victims in a way that offers practical help to avoid future victimization. Interagency cooperation and coordination are focused on individuals, for example, in enabling housing authorities to bridge with police in providing enhanced physical security for its building. The fact that victimization has already occurred increases the prominence of crime prevention. One-time victims are more likely than other citizens to take defensive actions are. Furthermore, if the time course of repeat victimization is identified to be diminutive, and if this is communicated to victims, a suitable sense of urgency may be linked with the implementation of these protective activities (p.91). Community crime prevention is involved with changing environmental factors linked with crime. Situational crime prevention covers measures planned to stop crimes by either making them harder to carry out or increasing the risk of detection (Dingwall 2006:65). For instance, some crime prevention measure increases community involvement such as improved street lighting. In London, the same project was initiated and the result seems to be staggering as the area with improved lighting, crime such as assaults, car crime and threatening incidents fell by 75% in the six weeks after the lighting was improved (Dingwall 2006:74 referring to Painter (1988)). Moreover, research has also shown that fear of crime is increased when it is dark, a time people would often be concerned about walking on the street (Dingwall 2006:63). Although crime is a routing feature of modern societies, the collective experience of crime will tend to be highly discriminated and stratified. Social groups are in a different way placed in respect to crime, which is differentially defenceless to victimization and differentially fearful about its risk. The experience of victimization, Pantazis et. al. (2006) added, is positively dependent upon a number of factors, including gender, background, class, and sexual preference, as well as geographical location. This significant view comes from feminist researchers presenting the extent of hidden crimes against women and children as well as by left realist criminologist who believes that the extent and impact of crime is greater for working-class communities (p.252). Apparently, community plays an essential role thus; it is the central institution for crime prevention. Family, schools, labour markets, retail establishments, police, and corrections must all confront the consequences of community life. Much of the success or failure of these other institutions is affected by the community context in which they operate. Our nation’s ability to prevent serious violent crime may depend profoundly on our capacity to help reform community life, at least in our most disturbed communities. Communities are conceptualized in sociological terms as an organic collective people who are bound together by continuing personal ties and networks, a high level of social interaction and cohesion, a shared identity and goals, and a sense of wholeness. Therefore, the loss of the socially cohesive communities contributes to crime and disorder. For those who subscribed to this community lost perspective, the scale and complexity of mass society has deprived individuals in urban areas of “solidary bonds” which is an interpersonal affection indispensable to prevent people from victimizing one another (Schneider 2006:22). The most significant element of crime prevention appears to be to bring about social interaction, whereby inhabitants of the community maintain a degree of acquaintance with each other. Such interaction and familiarity makes it possible to detect strangers in the community and may lead to a cohesive neighbourhood. Thus, community crime prevention general philosophy is to prevent, detect, and report criminal behaviour through citizen familiarity and social interaction (Schneider 2006:23). Theoretically, neighbourhoods with a strong sense of informal social control will not tolerate behaviour that is contrary to established or conventional norms. As a response to undesirable behaviour, instruments of informal social control include the spontaneous and subtle, direct confrontation by individual community members, and the prearranged activities of local groups. Therefore, informal social control is founded upon and incorporates “the threat of peer-imposed stigma if individuals violate standard endorsed by peers and the threat of self-imposed guilt feelings if actors violate standard they themselves have internalized” (Schneider 2006:24 referring to works of Grasmick, Jacobs, and McCallum 1983:361). The concept of informal social control is also the focus of urban theorist who contend that public peace is not reserved chiefly by the police but by an intricate, almost insentient, network of voluntary controls and standards among people themselves. In Wilson and Kelling’s “Broken Windows” metaphor, they expand this theoretical doctrine by articulating the sequence of events that wear away the competence of community to use informal control mechanisms that subsequently play a role to a spiral of decline that provokes crime. Just as an un-repaired broken window may stimulate damage against other undamaged windows, it is hypothesized that untended non-standard behaviour can lead to the discernment of social disorder and the associated breakdown of local informal control mechanisms. (Schneider 2006:24). In UK, regardless of the extensive reworking of the criminal justice system in the wake of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, principally the redeployment of youth justice, the public have continued to criticize about a wide range of phenomena. It is either circumstances of late modernity or intolerable behaviours depending upon the viewpoint adopted or its impact to their quality of life. These conditions is similar to “Broken Windows” of Wilson and Kelling (1982) which stressed the moral responsibility of individuals towards their communities, endorsed the bigotry of incivilities and helped instate a campaign for the zero-tolerance policing of distressed neighbourhoods. On the other hand, Young (1999) assumption according to Squires and Stephen (2005) is unquestionably precise when he says that the traditional uniformed police may only be a necessary, though far from sufficient, component of this new urban governance (p.17). The “broken windows” perspective is significant for, undoubtedly, the ways in which one perceives such social phenomena become a crucial factor in shaping how one reacts to them and, more significantly, how communities and social agencies (the police, the government, the law) seek to respond (Squires and Stephen 2005:17). According to Hancock (1999), result of fieldworks conducted in two localities (Earleschurch and Edgebank) reveals the implication of realizing the conflicting and disjointed nature of urban services and community safety strategies when dealing with neighbourhood change in high crimes areas (p.3). For instance, in Earleschurch, a small residential area containing approximately 2000 households, many merchant and commercial classes left during the inter-war period and since then many social disorders began to emerge. However, some professional people apparently attracted by the nearness of cultural amenities, stayed, or moved in. In the 1960s, because of “planning blight” and abandoned properties, many of these groups moved out. Thus, local authority took over the properties and later endorsed it to housing associations. Accordingly, these houses were converted to small flats. This is an sign that it has lost its image as an well-off area developed for the merchant class. However, it is not comprehensible if its status as a declining neighbourhood is legitimate since its decline is not incessant. Almost certainly, according to Hancock (1999:3), it may be only encountering a restricted period of regeneration or renewal in some segment of the area. On the contrary, since the rapid growth of town in the 19th century, prostitution and drugs became a feature of Earleschurch. The town’s reputation collapse and the rate of crimes soars. From 1994 to 1995, 96 incidents of house burglaries and 25 for non-dwelling burglary were reported (p.4). Note that these were underestimates as some people are unwilling to report the incidents to the police because many of them feel that there is little to be gained. Furthermore, Victim Support survey reveals that only 4% of people in the area bought house insurance because they say they cannot afford it. Robbery and muggings are the main problems in the locality and they are likely to be reported. However, serious offences and insurance claims are less likely to be reported after the crime (Hancock 1999:4). In Edgebank, although not in the same reputation level as Earleschurch does, prostitution near the town centre has also been reported. However, the crime figures for the area suggest that burglary is the main problem. Activities related to prostitution or calls regarding sexual offences are minimal, thus prostitution is not the main issue. Similar to Earleschurch, caution should be taken whenever responding to disorder since there is no clear link over the extent to which some socially disorderly behaviour like prostitution contributes to the problem in the community. In Edgebank for instance, “there is no consensus concerning the extent to which prostitution is a problem” (Hancock 1999:5), suggesting that the impact of disorder depends in part upon the level of tolerance of the community. The link according to Wilson and Kelling (1982) is the process where citizens are afraid of the ill-smelling drunk, rowdy teenager, or the importuning beggar expressed his distaste for unseemly behaviour that give folks a bit of wisdom that disorderly behaviour must go unrestrained. Consequently, severe street crime rises as the unrestrained panhandler (which is actually the first “broken window”), muggers, and robbers who trust they have a great lead operating on the street as prospective victims are already scared by the existing situation. Logically, if the community cannot stop a niggling panhandler from exasperating passer-by, the thief may reason (p.5). Similar to the car in the Bronx and Palo Alto and the behaviour shown by people towards untended property, everything becomes a fair game for people out for fun even for those who consider themselves law-abiding citizens. The difference is vandalism begins much more quickly in Bronx due to the nature of community life in Bronx where the experience of “no one caring” dominates. In Palo Alto, vandalism does not happen unless somebody started it. This is because people in that area have come to believe that private possessions are “cared for” and harmful activities are costly. However, these situations suggests that vandalism or crimes can happen anywhere once the sense of mutual regards and the obligations of civility are lowered by actions that seem to signal that “no one cares” or the unfixed “broken window”. 3. Conclusion Community and individuals are not only vulnerable to crime victimization but also fearful about crime. Thus, fear of crime though is not necessarily criminal primarily contributes to the crime problems in the community. Fear of crimes is a deviant behaviour and the impact of crime and disorder in the community can undermine the creation of supportive strong communities thus fear of crime is regarded as a problem itself. Therefore, chronic rates of crime, disorder, and violence flourishes that disrupt the life chances of residents. Wilson and Kelling’s symbol “Broken Windows” actually represents “no one cares” state of mind in a community thus the linear relationship between incivilities, crime, and neighbourhood decline is true. The experiment conducted in Bronx and Palo Alto in 1969 is a good example of how communities’ reacts and think, thus serious violent crime depends heavily on the ability to reshape community life. Communities are organic collective people bound together with shared identity and goals therefore a loss of social cohesiveness with the community results in crime and disorder. A community with a strong sense of informal social control will not allow behaviour that is contrary to established norms. In Wilson and Kelling’s ‘Broken Windows” they articulate the sequence of events that erodes the capacity of a community to invoke informal control consequential to a spiral of decline that promotes crime. As a result, the untended deviant behaviour leads to the perception of social disorder and related breakdown of local informal control mechanisms. To maintain the sense of mutual regards and the obligations of civility, people need to trust that “everybody cares” and someone in the very near future will fix that “broken window”. 4. 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