ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates crime, fear and people's impacts that are unevenly distributed between geographical areas and social groups; there are geographical patterns to where offenders and victims live, as well as where they are perceived to live; people tend to fear particular places at certain times; and the spatial behavior and identities of social groups are shaped by fear of crime. Like crime itself, fear of crime tends to be higher in certain areas and affects certain groups more than others. The street lighting research of the early 1990s is significant as one of the largest experimental programs aiming to reduce crime and fear of crime in built environments. One danger of focusing too closely on local environments and the journeys of burglars is to ignore the class conflicts and inequalities which lie at the root of crime. Structural explanations take into account economic and social history and change in order to understand particular problems of crime in particular places.
