ABSTRACT
With the recent media attention dedicated to violent crime and its implications on the school setting, it is crucial that social scientists examine the impact that violent crime has had on adolescents, particularly in the places where they spend most of their time—schools. This chapter examines determinants of fear of criminal victimization among, adolescents at school to determine if the predictors of fear of criminal victimization (gender, race, etc.) among adolescents are the same as those among adults. Despite the abundance of research examining fear of crime among adults, there has been scant attention paid to examining fear of crime among adolescents. Nevertheless, the large majority of studies examining adolescent fear of criminal victimization, and particularly adolescent fear of criminal victimization at school, are descriptive, indicating that many students are fearful of being victimized by crime at school but failing to provide explanations for this fear.
