Dangerous Places and the Unpredictable Stranger: Constructions of Fear of Crime
| Author | Deborah Lupton |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486589903200102 |
| Published date | 01 April 1999 |
| Date | 01 April 1999 |
Dangerous Places
and
the Unpredictable
Stranger: Constructions
of
Fear
of
Crime
Deborah
Lupton
Centre
for
Cultural
Risk
Research,
Charles
Sturt
University
This article presents findings from a predominantly qualitative study on
fear
of
crime among a group
of
Australians, using individual interviews
and focus groups.The discussion focuses on the ways in which the partici-
pants identified particular spatial and temporal dimensions
of
crime, and
identifies the social groups and individuals upon which people projected
their
fear.
Feelings
of
fear are dynamic and contextual, constantly subject
to
reassessment and
change
depending on such factors asthe time
of
day
or
night, individuals' past experiences
of
crime,
their
familiarity and experi-
ence
with
an area, the presence
or
absence
of
others in a particular
location at a particular time, and circuits of localised knowledges.
Feelings
of
uncertainty and loss
of
control
were
central
to
the identification of
dangerous
places
and dangerous others.The participants' fear tended
to
be
in relation
to
the figure
of
the 'unpredictable stranger' - someone
who
is
Other
to
one's
Self,
an individual
who
does not share one's own approach
to
life, one's principles and sensibilities.
Lay people's
-,
rr of crime has become established as a major focus of research in
criminology.
Much
previous research, however, has used quantitative methodolo
...
gies, based
on
'tick
...
the
...
box' questionnaire items.
Such
research has been valuable
in documenting patterns of response across large populations,
and
in identifying
certain features as structuring fear of crime responses, such as age, gender, sociode
...
mographic status and place of residence. It has a
number
of limitations, however.
With
some
notable
exceptions,
the
literature
on fear
of
crime
remains
rather
descriptive
and
conceptually underdeveloped, failing to account for why people feel
afraid (Sparks, 1992; Walklate, 1995; Hollway and Jefferson, 1997). Most research
on fear of crime has
tended
to represent fear as a concrete
and
static property of
certain individuals, an enduring trait
that
some people do
and
others do
not
possess
The
research
upon
which this article is based was funded by
the
Criminology Research
Council, and was part of a larger study on fear of crime conducted by members of the
Centre
for Cultural Risk Research, Charles Sturt University. A summary and
the
two volumes of the
full report
Fear
of Crime (1998), by
John
Tulloch, Deborah Lupton, Warwick Blood, Marian
Tulloch, Christine
Jennett
and Mike Enders, may be obtained from
the
National Campaign
Against Violence and Crime
Unit,
Attorney General's Department, Canberra.
Address
for
correspondence:
Dr
Deborah
Lupton.
Associate
Professor
in Cultural
Studies
and
Cultural
Policy.
14
Arnold
Street.
KiUara
NSW
2071.
Australia.
Email:
dLupton@csu.edu.au
THEAUSTRALIAN
AND
NEW
ZEAU\ND
JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
VOLUME
32
NUMBER
I 1999
PP.
1-15
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