Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Online, McClain
2001
). Among the broader background causes of increased per-
ception of crime, apart from exposure to its increase, has been the
rising safety
expectations
by the population and their lower tolerance of risk; it is assumed that
others—especially police forces—will solve all problems, rather than accepting that
there is also a personal responsibility to take protective measures. In addition, there
was also a decrease in the degree of trust in the police and other agencies, such as lo-
cal government, as well as neighbours, to provide protection or help in time of need.
In some countries police forces are often regarded with fear, given the corruption of
the forces and their ability to coerce local populations, which means some police are
either responsible for a great deal of violations, or are in league with criminal ele-
ments, allowing the latter to flourish without intervention. The enormous increase
in the number of
TV crime series
has also probably had an effect on the increased
perception of crime, for some apply these images to their own area—without evi-
dence. In a more local context it has been shown that the perception of crime, es-
pecially an individual's worry about his or her safety, varies with
areal familiarity
,
the degree to which a person is familiar with and comfortable in an area. Feelings
of being lost, or being in an unfamiliar place, generates at least anxiety and unease,
if not outright worry about safety, especially if the local people are of distinctively
different backgrounds, as seen in dress and behaviour. Hence, fear of the unknown,
may come from the area itself, or the inhabitants, whose unfamiliar customs and
racial characteristics may make them appear threatening. Even the behaviour of
groups of young adults often evoke the same emotions. In addition, it has been
shown that most people have greater fear of their safety in
badly maintained areas
,
places that are dirty, unkempt and polluted, and which contain abandoned or poorly
kept buildings, features that increased in many inner city areas because of deindus-
trialization processes. By contrast, clean, more attractive urban environments and
especially public spaces, in which with plenty of people of similar origin or class
are found, reduces the fear of crime (van den Berg et al.
2006
).
By the 1990s all these factors increased the perception of crime and when added
to the fact of higher crime rates led to increasing demands for political action to
solve the problems. Indeed the scale of the problem led many to believe that the
existing system of crime prevention, especially in cities, was broken and that new
approaches to reducing crime needed to be sought, in which more attention should
be paid to applying new policies to strike at the
reasons
for crime, rather than only
dealing with the
results
of crime. Yet there was certainly a need to be more effective
in solving crime by applying new methods
12.2.2
Decreases in Crime from 1990s
At the same time that greater political attention were being focused on ways of
fighting the huge increase in crime and heightened perceptions of fear of crime in
the 1990s, the statistics on crime in most developed countries began to show a de-
crease in most categories. Indeed, Fig.
12.1
showed that violent crime and property
crimes in the U.S.A. have fallen to levels not seen since the early 1970s. Although
