Usefulness to Criminology of the Concept of Fear of Crime - Coursework Example

Critical Assessment of Usefulness to criminology of the concept of 'fear of crime Concept of Fear of Crime and Criminology When we discuss the usefulness of the concept of 'fear of crime’, it is unlike discussing material phenomena such as buildings, roads and bridges. It is also different from discussing natural objects such as rocks and mountains or birds and animals. Nor is it much like discussion of offence rates, mortality rates, literacy and numeracy skills and most other social scientific objects of knowledge. As Skogan (1976, p. 14) succinctly put it more than 30 years ago, it is '…a difficult psychological construct affected by a number of aspects of urban life. It is perhaps a shame that Skogan's very fuzzy definition of crime fear has not endured for it captures the very amorphous nature of crime fear; something that is lost through the process of quantification. Lupton (1999) argues that fear of crime is by nature and was by definition – at least in Skogan's terms – subjective. It is an experience, or set of experiences, that are intensely individual – that is if we accept a 'techno-scientific' account that such a coherent thing even exists (Anthony & Cunneen 2008, p. 72). While most natural and materially occurring objects can be counted and described, even if the categories by which, we order or taxonomies these are largely arbitrarily constructed (Foucault 1970), and many social scientific targets of knowledge clearly categorized and delineated – for example, we can statistically count an assault offence through a detailed police or victim account of the offence even while the accuracy of these accounts and levels of reportage might vary – fear of crime is both a conceptually poor construct (Ditton and Farrall 2000) and a subjectively diverse set of experiences (Jackson 2004). It is not something that exists 'out there' in the social world, as, some kind of Durkheimian social fact like crime or suicide. As Jackson (2004, p. 962) has put it, fear of crime has come: "… to name and classify in a nebulous form a range of perceptions, responses and vulnerabilities. Expressing or associating concerns about broader social issues that crime connects with the public consciousness". In this very sense, it exists as an organizing principle in the minds of statisticians, social scientists, criminologists, policy makers and politicians – and even cannot agree on what that something is. Description A concept 'fear of crime' was invented via new technologies of enumerating crime that developed in the 1960s; most notably the victim or crime survey (Stanko 2000). Thus, most of the technical debates followed its invention rather than the other way around. We created the concept then decided to argue about whether it might be a decent organizing principal for a body of social scientific knowledge, or not. This is not to suggest that there was no anxiety about crime prior to the 1960s, certainly there was found in the text of Pearson (1983). Rather, it is that the term fear of crime was not an organizing principal – indeed, the term was rarely if ever used before 1965 (Lee 2007). Second, the enumeration of fear of crime that resulted from the surveys indicated significantly high levels of fear – or whatever was measured – that it became a governmental issue. Once fear of crime was enumerated and became an organizing principal for a range of criminal justice and social policy and targeting its reduction, it also became a staple object of criminological inquiry attracting research funding and becoming the topic for thousands of academic publications (Ditton and Farrall 2000; Lee 2007). Not insignificant resources were invested in the new problem. Fear of crime then became political from the moment it was enumerated. The initial surveys themselves were the result of an 'expert commission' assembled by US president LB Johnson. As Ditton and Farral (2000) have made absolutely clear, the political potency of 'fear of crime' was there at the outset. Harris succinctly plotted this political potency way back in 1969 (Harris 1969), a fact that seems to be conveniently glossed over by many subsequent researchers. Thus, one cannot speak of levels of fear of crime without engaging debates about how fear plays out at a political level – it was at this level it was invented. Crime Prevention and Effects In many jurisdictions, reducing fear of crime or prevention from fear of crime has become, at one point or another, a key performance indicator (KPI) for high-ranking police officers (failure to reduce fear may have repercussions on policing careers) and, indeed, an object for policing more generally. In UK, people are facing fear of crime extensively and the law enforcement officials are required to control the problem by minimizing the fear of crime and also by controlling the crime largely (Jackson 2004). On the face of it, this is surely a worthy set of goals. However, there are a couple of major caveats. First, there is the simple technical problem regarding the levels of fear measurement. If fear of crime is elevated by our technologies of enumeration – in other words, if surveys overestimate crime fear – we are trying to reduce a phantom figure. This might also explain the intransigents of levels of fear of crime and the difficulty those responsible for its reduction might have in meeting their key performance indicators. For example, the British Home Office (2007) has stated that although reported crime is well down… "We aim to reduce this level even further. In addition, to reduce fear of crime which has risen, despite the drop in crime. For instance, only 4.2% of households become victims of burglary, but 13% live in fear of it. This is something we need to – and will – address". The list of fear of crime has created a concept that has become embedded in truth games and strategies of power that concern crime, its definition, its prevention and the politics, bureaucracies and instrumentalities, engaged in these practices. Moreover, fear of crime has become a cultural theme, not only providing the conditions under which discussions of levels of crime fear and like become intelligible, but also democratizing the discourse and allowing the very methods of details to be reproduced as part of the popular culture. We may have to treat the concept with what Cohen (1988) has called "repressive tolerance", strategies of resistance are possible if the hidden dimensions of its power effects are made intelligible. References Anthony, Thalia, & Cunneen, Chris (2008) The Critical Criminology Companion, Hawkins Press, pp. 72-80. Cohen, S (1988) Against Criminology, New Brunswick: Transaction Books. Ditton, J and Farral, S (2000) The Fear of Crime, Aldershot: Ashgate. Foucault, M (1970) The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences, New York: Random House. Harris, R (1969) Fear of Crime, New York: Frederick A Praeger. Home Office (2007) How We're reducing Crime, available at www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/reducing-crime/ (accessed April 5, 2009) Jackson, J. (2004) ‘Experience and Expression: Social and Cultural Significance in the Fear of Crime.’ British Journal of Criminology, 44, 6, 946-966. Lee, M. (2007) Inventing Fear of Crime Criminology and the Politics of Anxiety, Cullompton: Willan. Pearson, G. (1983) Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears. Palgrave Macmillan. p 236. Skogan, Wesley G. 1976. "Victimization Surveys and Criminal Justice Planning." University of Cincinnati Law Review, 45, 167-206. Stanko, E.A. (2000) 'Victims R Us: the life history of "fear of crime" and the politicization of violence' in T. Hope and R. Sparks Crime, Risk and Insecurity. Routledge, London: 13-30. Read More