ABSTRACT

What explains the gap between the fear of crime and the reality of crime? How important to public anxieties are perceptions of the likelihood and consequence of victimisation? What about feelings of control and the personal vividness of risk? How significant is past experience of crime, or hearing from family and friends about danger and threat, or consuming mass media reports of criminals, victims, eroding norms, and loosening moral standards? What about perceptions of our social and physical environment – the people we encounter, our feelings of community trust and social cohesion, the state and ownership of public space and social decay?