ABSTRACT

In a Louis Harris survey (1975), fear of crime ranked above health, money, and loneliness in a list of the major concerns of older Americans. Pope and Feharm (1976) and Alan Malinchak (1980) have also found that fear of crime is one of the major concerns

of older Americans. Clements and Kleiman (1976), documenting the fear of crime among the elderly, found that 52 percent of respondents aged 65 and over said they were afraid of crime versus only 41 percent of the under-65 group. A survey conducted by Erikson (1974) indicated that women are more likely to express fear of crime than are men. This may be a result of the fact that men are more reluctant to admit fear than women.2 Clements and Kleiman reported that only 19 percent of all males in their sample reported fear of crime. When broken down by age, however, 34 percent of the elderly men admitted to such a fear.3