When people get locked up for these offenses, they are easily replaced on the streets by others seeking an income or struggling with addiction. Research shows that crime starts to peak in the mid- to late- teenage years and begins to decline when individuals are in their mids. After that, crime drops sharply as adults reach their 30s and 40s.
The National Research Council study concludes:. As a result, the excessive sentencing practices in the U. This is partially a result of declining crime rates, but has largely been achieved through pragmatic changes in policy and practice. For more than a decade, the political climate of criminal justice reform has been evolving toward evidence-based, commonsense approaches to public safety.
This can be seen in a variety of legislative, judicial, and policy changes that have successfully decreased incarceration without adverse impacts on public safety. Not only will a fixed level of risk produce different levels of fear under this condition, but it is entirely possible for one group to exhibit greater fear than another even when their perceived risk is lower compare the fear of groups 1 and 2 at points b and c in Figure 3A. Group differences in fear may even be reversed at different points along the risk continuum see Figure 3B.
Using data from a sample of Seattle residents, Warr found substantial age and sex differences in sensitivity to risk across a variety of crimes.
Moreover, the observed age and sex differences in fear were largely attributable, not to differences in perceived risk, but rather to differences in sensitivity to risk among these groups.
Part of the answer seems to lie in rather small age- and sex-related differences in the perceived seriousness of crimes Warr, , but there appears to be a much more important reason. That is, females and the elderly seem to perceive crime in a way that is fundamentally different from males and the young.
Specifically, among females and older individuals, different crimes are subjectively linked in a way that is not true for other groups. In examining the correlations between fear of different crimes, Warr found strong correlations between certain crimes. Examined closely, these configurations of offenses typically consisted of crimes that can logically or empirically occur contemporaneously or in continuous sequence e. The frequency and strength of these subjective linkages were much greater among females than males and among older, rather than younger, individuals Warr, , , Taken together, they suggest that circumstances or events that appear innocuous or comparatively minor to males or younger persons are apt to be viewed as more dangerous to females and the elderly because of the offenses they imply or portend.
One offense that looms large for women but not men, of course, is rape. For many women, then, fear of crime may be synonymous with fear of rape. Although age and sex have been the most thoroughly documented and closely examined correlates of fear, there are others as well.
The prevalence of fear appears to be substantially greater among blacks than whites, and unlike age and sex differences in. Not surprisingly, fear is a largely urban phenomenon, although the degree of inter-city variation in fear is striking. In the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration LEAA surveys of 26 cities conducted during , the proportion of respondents who reported feeling ''very unsafe" or "somewhat unsafe" when alone in their neighborhood at night ranged from a low of 26 percent in San Diego to a high of 58 percent in Newark see Skogan and Maxfield, ; Garofalo, Finally, fear is inversely related to family income, and the relation holds among both blacks and whites Hindelang et al.
One of the proximate causes of fear, as we have seen, is the perceived risk of victimization. Although perceived risk is essential to explaining fear, explanations of fear based solely on perceived risk beg the larger question: How do individuals estimate or form impressions of their risk of victimization? One way to address the question is to examine the environmental stimuli, or cues to danger, that individuals confront in their everyday lives.
The number and variety of such cues are probably enormous. Some cues may be encountered only occasionally and thus affect only situational or short-term perceptions of risk. Others may be routine if not constant reminders of danger and thus may be more likely to affect long-term perceptions of risk. Relatively little work has been done on identifying cues to danger or assessing levels of exposure to such cues. However, the current state of evidence does permit some general conclusions.
There is strong evidence that people commonly perceive crime in geographic terms, meaning that they typify areas as dangerous or, alternatively, as safe zones. All cities, for example, seem to have widely understood folklore about dangerous areas of the city.
These danger zones may be small, as in the case of particular parks, beaches, or neighborhoods, or they may extend to entire sections or regions of a city. In an ingenious study of the perceptual geography of crime, Ley asked residents of the Monroe area of Philadelphia to.
When the routes drawn by respondents were overlaid, a clear picture of the "stress surface" of Monroe emerged, showing the spatial segmentation of the area into safe and dangerous zones.
Ley did not directly question residents about their reasons for avoiding certain areas, but an inspection of the areas revealed a number of potential cues to danger, such as gang graffiti, abandoned buildings, and the presence of prostitutes and junkies.
Ley's work demonstrates the existence of microzones of danger blocks, street corners , but larger areas may be feared as well.
The downtown or central business districts of cities, for example, are often regarded as potentially dangerous places DuBow et al. Pyle asked a sample of Akron residents to rate the crime problem in 10 geographic areas of the city and then used these perceptual data to construct a three-dimensional cognitive map of the city.
The major distinction recognized by respondents was between the central city and the suburbs, with the central city rising like a mountain range from the plains of the suburbs. Although central-city areas actually displayed substantial variation in reported crime rates, respondents largely failed to differentiate among areas within the central city, perceiving it to be uniformly dangerous. The downtown or central business districts of cities, however, are not necessarily perceived to be their most dangerous areas.
In a survey of Dallas residents conducted by the author 1 , respondents were asked, "What area or place in Dallas do you think is most dangerous when it comes to crime?
The total rate of UCR index offenses in these areas, although high, was not markedly different from several other areas of Dallas. However, the rate of violent offenses homicide, rape, and aggravated assault was distinctly higher, suggesting that violent offenses are most important in defining areas as "dangerous places. The propensity to view these two areas of Dallas as dangerous places also increased with the number of years that respondents had lived in the city, which suggests that people come.
Some environments pose a threat only to certain populations, and some are uniquely frightening because they must be faced on a routine basis. One environment that exhibits both these features is the school. In the National Institute of Education's Safe School Study , one-fifth of secondary school students reported that they were afraid at school at least sometimes, although only 3 percent said they were afraid most of the time. Among junior high school students who were more afraid than high school students , 22 percent reported avoiding three or more locations in the school the most common being restrooms , a figure that rose to 33 percent among students in large cities.
Among the latter group, 8 percent said that they had actually stayed home at least one day during the previous month because someone might hurt or bother them at school. A study of black Philadelphia students by Savitz et al. The classroom itself appears to be the safest place in students' minds; only 21 percent of students thought there was a high risk of being beaten or robbed in the classroom.
If certain locations are commonly perceived to be dangerous, what areas are perceived to be safe? One answer has repeatedly appeared in research on fear of crime. Using data from the attitude supplement to the National Crime Survey, Hindelang et al. Surveys conducted by the author in Dallas and Seattle see note 1 also lead to the same conclusion. Whereas 64 percent of Dallas residents rated their city as "not very safe" or "not safe at all," only 23 percent described their own neighborhood that way.
In Seattle, the corresponding figures were 34 percent and 15 percent, respectively. Why should home and neighborhood be so widely regarded as safe? One possible answer is simply cognitive consistency; the notion of home as a dangerous place is not an easy one to live. There is, however, another possible explanation. Warr has shown that a key cue to danger is novelty; novel or unfamiliar environments evoke fear of criminal victimization.
For most individuals, of course, home and the surrounding neighborhood are the environments that they are most familiar with e. The fact that home is typically perceived to be comparatively safe, however, does not mean that it is perceived to be risk free.
Not all individuals feel safe at home see Skogan and Maxfield, , and residential burglary, as we have seen, is among the most feared crimes. Although areas away from home may be especially feared, the large number of hours that people commonly spend in their home and neighborhood means that any risks in those environments are amplified by exposure to risk. Also, as a "storehouse" of valued possessions and persons , the home is a uniquely vulnerable location. If crime is commonly perceived in geographic terms, it is also perceived in social terms.
That is, there appear to be widely accepted images of dangerous persons, with the result that some persons in the population are feared more than others. Although the personal attributes that signify danger might appear to be subtle and numerous, that is not necessarily the case.
Using data from a factorial survey, Warr found that two immediately apparent features of persons combine to form a potent cue for eliciting fear. The most frightening persons, quite simply, are young males. Young males are particularly frightening to females, but even young males are often frightened of other young males.
Moreover, few cues or combinations of cues are more powerful in eliciting fear than a group of young males. This finding is corroborated by evidence that adults commonly avoid groups of "teenagers" e. The question of dangerous persons, of course, raises one of the most sensitive questions of our day.
Granted that young males are frightening, what about young black males? Are blacks more frightening than whites? Using data from residents of three cities, Graber reports that respondents "viewed crime largely as the work of young males, black or belonging to other minority races.
Still, these findings suggest that blacks or, most probably, young black males are frequently typified as criminals or potential criminals and, as a consequence, are feared more than others. Apart from geographic and social cues to danger, two other cues appear to be important in situational assessments of danger. One of these cues, not surprisingly, is darkness. Fear of crime is generally higher at night, and many Americans report that they avoid going out at night due to fear see below.
Indeed, Warr reports evidence that darkness is the single most important cue in evoking fear of crime in outdoor situations; an activity or situation e. The second cue is the presence of bystanders or companions; the presence of others normally acts to reduce or alleviate the fear that individuals would feel if alone Warr, However, this calming effect, as one might suspect, does not operate if those "others" are perceived to be dangerous persons. One of the most intuitively compelling hypotheses about fear is the notion that persons who have been victims of crime should display greater fear than those who have not.
Numerous studies, however, have shown little or no difference in fear between victims and nonvictims, and the issue has remained something of a conundrum among researchers see Hindelang et al. One possible explanation is that many criminal events are minor, have little salience to victims, and are quickly forgotten e.
However, the absence of positive evidence for the hypothesis may be due to a common methodological deficiency in studies of the consequences of victimization. As we have seen, victimization rates and fear show strong—but opposite—correlations with age and sex. Consequently, crude comparisons between victims and nonvictims may fail to reveal the effects of victimization experiences.
Skogan and Maxfield found only small initial differences in fear in comparing victims of crime with nonvictims, but when they controlled for the confounding effects of demographic variables, the differences increased substantially. In addition, the largest differences in fear between victims and nonvictims occurred in cases where the victim had suffered a violent offense that required medical attention. This evidence, along with arguments we consider later, suggests that investigators may have failed to detect what could be substantial effects of prior victimization.
Much of the increased attention devoted to fear of crime in recent years stems from a deep concern among social scientists, public officials, and the media with the social consequences of fear. As Skogan and Maxfield have noted, "It is widely believed that fear of crime has enormous consequences for the way we live. Yet if the American public has not quite reached the point of panic, there is abundant evidence that fear does indeed affect the lives of Americans to a substantial degree.
Reactions to fear take many forms, but they can be classified under some general rubrics. Avoidance behaviors are those actions "taken to decrease exposure to crime by removing oneself from or increasing the distance from situations in which the risk of criminal victimization is believed to be high" DuBow et al. Thus, a fearful person may avoid certain locations or certain kinds of people that are perceived to be dangerous, or may avoid certain activities e.
Reducing exposure to risk through avoidance behaviors, however, is not always possible. An individual may have no choice but to pass through a dangerous area on the way to work and may not have the option of moving his or her home to a safer neighborhood. Where avoidance is not an option, individuals may engage.
Thus, for example, a person who must navigate a dangerous environment may alter their mode of transportation taking a taxi rather than a public bus or driving rather than walking or seek companions for the journey. Similarly, a person living in a neighborhood with a high rate of residential burglary may invest in home security precautions or purchase a weapon.
Apart from reducing their risk through avoidance or precautionary behaviors, people may also seek to minimize the costs or damages that they will incur in the event of a victimization what DuBow et al. To illustrate, some persons carry little or no money outside the home in anticipation of potential robberies, whereas others insure or engrave their property in the home or simply refrain from keeping valuable property at home altogether.
A large number of surveys designed to measure public responses to fear of crime have been conducted in recent years. Although the samples and methodologies of these surveys vary widely, certain findings appear with sufficient regularity to warrant some general conclusions.
First, among the most common responses to fear of crime in the United States is spatial avoidance, meaning that individuals commonly report that they avoid areas perceived to be dangerous. Spatial avoidance typically ranks in frequency above most or all other responses to fear in social surveys, at least among those responses that occur outside the home DuBow et al. For example, 77 percent of a sample of Dallas residents reported that they avoided "certain places in the city," as did 63 percent of Seattle residents Warr, As noted earlier, there is a strong tendency among individuals to perceive crime in geographic terms; hence the tendency to avoid "dangerous places" is not surprising.
So prevalent is spatial avoidance, however, that it is reasonable to assume that the ecology of U. Neighborhoods that are perceived to be dangerous places are likely to be find themselves socially isolated, and retail businesses that are located in ostensibly dangerous areas may suffer a shortage of customers Conklin, ; Skogan and Maxfield, For example,. If people commonly avoid dangerous places, they also avoid dangerous times, the most obvious example being nighttime.
As noted earlier, darkness is a principal cue to danger Warr, , and substantial proportions of Americans report that they avoid going out at night DuBow et al. There may well be other periodicities to fear, however. Godbey et al. Another common response to fear is to employ precautionary measures when traveling outside the home. Among the most common is to seek the company of others during one's journey. In surveys of Dallas and Seattle conducted by the author see note 1 , 29 percent and 26 percent of respondents, respectively, reported that they avoided going out of the house alone.
In surveys of Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, approximately 30 percent of respondents in each city reported that they take an escort "most of the time" when leaving home after dark Skogan and Maxfield, Traveling by foot is also commonly avoided by urban Americans in favor of the safety of automobiles Skogan and Maxfield, , and a small percentage choose to carry a weapon or some other form of protection e.
The foregoing responses to fear all pertain to situations outside the home, but although the home is generally regarded as safer than areas away from it, the large majority of Americans nevertheless take precautions, if frequently only minor ones, to protect their dwelling and its occupants. Skogan and Maxfield report that fully 96 percent of the households interviewed in San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia reported at least one home security precaution.
In accordance with other research e. Such precautions, of course, require little financial investment or time.
More expensive and time-consuming precautions, however, are not rare. Although estimates vary, roughly percent of American households have invested in such measures as window bars or grates, improved locks, property engraving, alarm systems, improved lighting, or theft insurance see generally DuBow et al.
Department of Justice, , in which household informants were questioned about the steps they had taken "to make [their home] safer from crime. Among household security measures, the most controversial is gun ownership. According to repeated GSS surveys, approximately one-half of U. In a review of the literature on fear of crime and gun ownership, Wright et al. Two subsequent studies, however, cast some doubt on this conclusion. Using survey data from 59 neighborhoods in three standard metropolitan statistical areas SMSAs , Smith and Uchida found that the probability of purchasing "a gun or weapon for your protection" was significantly related to respondents' perceived risk of victimization, prior victimization experiences, and perceptions of neighborhood crime trends.
Like McDowall and Loftin , they found that the probability of purchasing a weapon increased when the police were perceived to be ineffective. For related research, see Smith and Uchida, Apart from their frequency, perhaps the most striking feature of public responses to fear is their age and sex distribution.
As Skogan and Maxfield have observed, "Every analysis of crime-related behavior indicates that women and the elderly are more likely to avoid exposure to risk and to take numerous measures to reduce their chances of being victimized. For example, whereas 42 percent of women in a Seattle sample reported that they avoid "going out alone," only 8 percent of men reported this precaution.
And whereas 40 percent of women reported that they avoid "going out at night," only 9 percent of men did so. The sex difference diminished substantially, however, when it came to spatial avoidance, with 67 percent of women and 58 percent of men reporting that they avoid "certain places in the city" Warr, Even males, it seems, avoid dangerous places.
The discussion thus far has concentrated on those avoidance and precautionary behaviors undertaken by individuals. One of the major developments in public responses to crime in recent years, however, has been the rise of collective, organized efforts within communities to reduce or prevent crime or fear of crime. These efforts have taken many forms, including 1 neighborhood watch programs, 2 citizen patrols, 3 neighborhood escort programs, 4 property-marking projects, 5 police-community councils, and 6 citizen crime-reporting programs see Rosenbaum, , ; Skogan, ; Skogan and Maxfield, ; DuBow et al.
Although estimates vary, it appears that approximately percent of adults in the United States participate to some degree in such organized activities Rosenbaum, ; Skogan and Maxfield, Among these community-based programs, neighborhood watch programs appear to be the most prevalent, as well as the most frequently studied, programs.
As Garofalo and McLeod have said, "Neighborhood watch has been the centerpiece of community crime prevention in the United States during the s.
Department of Justice, , 20 percent of U. Drawing on a nationwide study of neighborhood watch programs, Garofalo and McLeod report that the principal goal of such programs is to increase surveillance of the neighborhood by residents, extending, as it were, the "eyes and ears" of the police.
Most programs, they found, are sponsored by local police or sheriffs, and residents are encouraged to observe and report suspicious behavior, but not to intervene. The presence of neighborhood watches is usually announced by signs posted in the neighborhood or by stickers attached to homes. Although neighborhood surveillance is the primary goal of neighborhood watch programs, most engage in other activities as well, such as property identification, home security surveys, lighting improvement, and so on.
The rapid rise of neighborhood watch programs in the late s and early s was accompanied by strong claims in the media concerning the effectiveness of such programs in reducing crime and fear of crime, as well as high expectations among community activists and some researchers Lurigio and Rosenbaum, ; Rosenbaum, However, the current state of evidence seems to support the rather pessimistic assessment of Garofalo and McLeod and others.
Much of the evaluation research cited in support of neighborhood watch programs suffers from severe methodological deficiencies, and the most rigorous quasi-experimental studies indicate that victimization rates and fear are not significantly reduced by such programs Rosenbaum, , ; Skogan and Maxfield, ; Lurigio and Rosenbaum, One reason seems to be that neighborhood watch programs are most likely to arise in those neighborhoods that need them least e.
Another is that the initial interest taken by residents often fades quickly, with the result that many neighborhood programs soon become dormant Taub et al.
Finally, it is possible that neighborhood watch programs, by drawing attention to or dramatizing local crime, increase rather than alleviate fear among some residents.
There can be little doubt that fear of criminal victimization affects the lifestyles and quality of life of U. In assessing the social implications of fear, however, several points need to be considered. First, much of the current concern with fear of crime arises from an assumption that fear is an intrinsically negative emotion with no redeeming features.
In the biological sciences, however, fear is widely regarded as a beneficial rather than a deleterious reaction. Many animal species display apparent fear responses escape behavior, tonic immobility or freezing, distress calls, crouching, jumping when confronted by predators and other dangers, or exhibit forms of caution such as neophobia reluctance to enter a novel area. Far from being dysfunctional, such behaviors are generally regarded as highly adaptive because they reduce individual or collective exposure to risk and maximize the probability of survival in the face of lethal risks see Sluckin, An organism with no fear of predators, after all, is one that is unlikely to live long enough to reproduce.
The point is not that fear in humans is a desirable state; a society that feels safe and secure is surely to be preferred over one that does not. However, in the face of real danger, fear may lead individuals to take precautions that reduce their or others' risk and thereby save them from injury. A second issue concerns the extent to which fear of crime actually prevents citizens from engaging in normal everyday activities.
Drawing on their findings from the National Crime Surveys, Hindelang et al. Fear of criminal victimization, they argue, typically results in relatively subtle lifestyle changes. Rather than altering what individuals do, fear of crime is more likely to change the way they do it. Instead of forgoing shopping altogether, a fearful person may change their hours for shopping, alter the route or means of transportation employed in getting there, or choose to go shopping with companions.
The argument would seem to understate the consequences of fear for some individuals, for whom fear does appear to be a profoundly debilitating condition e. For many Americans, however, it may well be true that fear is less of an outright obstacle than a hindrance in their daily activities. Beyond the consequences of fear for individuals, however, lie questions about the consequences of fear for social institutions and American society as a whole. In recent years, a number of social commentators have charged that fear of crime has torn the very social fabric of the United States, making individuals afraid to leave their homes or strike up a conversation with a stranger.
In a widely cited book, for example, Silberman argued that ''fear of crime is destroying the network of relationships on which urban and suburban life depends. Be aware. The labels used to describe people should reduce rather than further ingrain the stigmatization of already-marginalized populations. Consider the whole person. No one should be defined by just one experience or aspect of their identity.
Respect preference. Language is ever-evolving, and sometimes, marginalized populations reclaim derogatory labels as a means of empowerment. Whenever possible, we should ask the people and communities at the center of—and partners in—our research what language they prefer. Related Content. Read more. Tags Crime and Justice. This is very different to suggesting moral culpability ceases to be a relevant consideration in the determination of punishment, or that courts should pay no regard to questions of desert.
It presupposes that questions about appropriate punishment are important ones to answer correctly. One example of the way Australian courts regard evidence derived from neuroscience is in the sentencing of Jordan Furlan in The judge went on to say that just punishment was an important factor among others in crafting the sentence.
A more striking case relates to the sentencing of former Tasmanian legislative council member Terry Martin for child sex offences. The judge imposed a much more lenient sentence than would have otherwise been the case because of the clear link between the medication and the offending. We cannot be sure how neuroscience will affect the law in future.
Indeed, there may even be a backlash against this form of evidence. What can be said is that Furlan, Martin and other cases show Australian judges still consider moral culpability, even in the face of neuroscientific evidence of impaired mechanisms.
They do not move to purely consequentialist considerations. This means retributivism is still alive and well, and just punishment still matters to Australian courts.
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