The relationship between fear of crime and risk perception across Europe
| Author | Eva Krulichová |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895818757832 |
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895818757832
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2019, Vol. 19(2) 197 –214
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895818757832
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The relationship between
fear of crime and risk
perception across Europe
Eva Krulichová
Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
Abstract
Cross-national comparisons of fear of crime have been gaining in popularity within the academic
community, as they allow for the examination of both individual and country-level correlates of
this phenomenon. Nevertheless, the role of perceived victimization risk in fostering fear of crime
with respect to various country specifics is often neglected. Drawing on data from the European
Social Survey Round 5 (ESS R5), the aim of this study is to explore the relationship between
fear of crime and risk perception in the context of 23 European countries. Risk perception is
positively correlated with fear of crime in all of the analysed countries, although the strength
of the relationship differs. Contrary to expectations, countries with a higher victimization rate
exhibit a weaker relationship between fear of crime and risk perception, while in countries with a
lower victimization rate, risk perception plays a relatively important role in shaping fear of crime.
No effect of unemployment rate, size of migrant population or income inequality was found in
the data.
Keywords
Cross-national comparison, ESS R5, fear of crime, risk perception, victimization
Introduction
In recent years, fear of crime has often been studied internationally using data from
extensive social surveys such as the European Social Survey (see Hummelsheim et al.,
2011; Reese, 2009; Semyonov et al., 2012; Vauclair and Bratanova, 2017; Visser et al.,
2013) or nationally using data with a nested structure containing information about
Corresponding author:
Eva Krulichová, Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Jilská 1, 110 00, Prague, Czech
Republic.
Email: eva.krulichova@soc.cas.cz
757832CRJ0010.1177/1748895818757832Criminology & Criminal JusticeKrulichova
research-article2018
Article
198 Criminology & Criminal Justice 19(2)
counties or other territorial units of a given country (Gaitán-Rossi and Shen, 2018;
Hanslmaier, 2013). The main objective of such scientific studies is to explain fear of
crime using a number of individual and contextual variables, which are considered to be
the most plausible correlates of the mentioned phenomena.
In these studies, however, scholars usually analyse fear of crime without taking into
account the respondent’s perceived victimization risk – something that has been revealed
to be an important predictor of fear of crime and mediator between fear of crime and
individual or social factors such as gender, victimization experience and social incivili-
ties (Ferraro, 1995; Ferraro and LaGrange, 1987; Gainey et al., 2011; Rountree and
Land, 1996). This omission is likely due to the fact that there is still no consensus on the
definition of fear of crime and that both phenomena – that is, fear of crime and risk per-
ception – have often been used interchangeably. While questions measuring the feeling
of safety in one’s neighbourhood served as the most frequently used indicators of fear of
crime at the beginning of research in this field, over time, questions explicitly measuring
the intensity of worries about various criminal offences or frequency of fearful episodes
have become more preferable in the academic community. Furthermore, ‘feeling of
safety’ indicators are being employed as measures of risk perception; that is, the proba-
bility of victimization, rather than fear of crime itself (Doran and Burgess, 2012; Farrall
et al., 2009; Ferraro and LaGrange, 1987; Gray et al., 2011; Hale, 1996; Warr, 2000).
Drawing on data from the European Social Survey Round 5 (ESS R5) conducted in
2010 and 2011, the present study therefore aims to explore the relationship between fear
of crime and feeling of safety as an indicator of risk perception by analysing 23 of the
European countries that participated in the survey. The results of the analysis suggest that
the strength of the relationship between the mentioned phenomena varies across the ana-
lysed countries and that these differences can partly be explained by the victimization
rate in a given country.
Theoretical Background
Explanations of fear of crime at an individual level
At an individual level, we usually concentrate on victimization experience and individ-
ual vulnerability. The victimization perspective is based on the presumption that people
who have become victims of crime fear crime to a greater extent than those who have no
such experience (Akers et al., 1987; Farrall et al., 2009). Some studies, however, find
only a weak or non-existent relationship between both variables (Ferraro, 1995; LaGrange
et al., 1992; Wanner and Caputo, 1987), which gives rise to the so-called victimization
paradox – that there are more people who fear crime than those who have been victim-
ized in the past. One explanation for this paradox may be indirect victimization, which
seems to be much more common than direct victimization, and is characterized by the
individual knowing somebody (through direct contact or media; see Doran and Burgess,
2012; Hale, 1996) who has previously been victimized. Another explanation is individ-
ual vulnerability or sensitivity to risk. Generally, we consider two types of vulnerability
– physical and social (Franklin et al., 2008; Skogan and Maxfield, 1981). In the first case,
an individual is convinced that he or she can easily become a victim of physical assault,
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