ABSTRACT
The relationship between risk and macro social change has been a focal concern for the social sciences over the last two decades (see Beck 1992; Lupton 1999; Strydom 2002), with some commentators now of the view that given the prevailing ‘culture of fear’ (Furedi 2002) a meaningful adage might be ‘I am a victim therefore I am’. Given recent social and political preoccupations with such issues as international terrorism, the threat of bioterrorism, and other global natural disasters like the 2004 tsunami, there is undoubtedly some sympathy to be had with Furedi’s view. In addition to these global concerns, however, there is clearly still something to be understood concerning people’s continued expressed fears in relation to more local issues like crime, as reported by national and international criminal victimization surveys, despite (reported) declining rates of recorded crime. It may be that these global and local pre-occupations are in some way connected. Therefore exploring the fear of crime and how that has been understood and mediated by structural variables might be a useful vehicle for untangling some of the wider conceptual problems in understanding the relationship between risk, gender and the fear of crime.
