In Search of the Fear of Crime: Using Interdisciplinary Insights to Improve the Conceptualisation and Measurement of Everyday Insecurities Emily Gray, Jonathan Jackson, Stephen Farrall 18 INTRODUCTION The body of work on the ‘fear of crime’ is vast, spans several decades and continents, and attracts continuing interest from politicians and academ- ics alike. Most of this work focuses on negative emotional responses (fear, worry or anxiety) to the threat of common crime categories (burglary, theft, assault, etc.). Surveys suggest that the fear of crime is widespread amongst members of many contemporary westernised societies. Since 2000 the British Crime Survey has found that around one-sixth of the population have reported high levels of worry about burglary, car theft and vio- lent crime (Nicholas et al., 2007). Studies under- taken in the US (Skogan and Maxfield, 1981), Australia (Enders and Jennett, 2009), Europe (Holland [van der Wurff et al., 1989]; Switzerland [Killias and Clerici, 2000]; Germany [Kury and Obergfell-Fuchs, 2008]; Sweden [Heber, 2007]; and Spain [Serrano-Maillo and Kury, 2008]), and newly industrialised economies like China (Zhang et al., 2009) and Brazil (Dammert and Malone, 2006) also testify to heightened public insecurities about falling victim to crime. Fear of crime is often seen to constitute a social problem in and of itself (Hale, 1996), reducing quality of life and public health (Jackson and Stafford, 2009; Stafford et al., 2007), restricting movements (Ferraro, 1995), eroding social and neighbourhood bonds (Lavrakas, 1981), and shap- ing the very organisation and zoning of a city. Yet while reducing fear and providing reassurance to the community has, at times, become as important as the reduction of actual crime among policy makers, understanding the nature of fear has been fraught with challenges and pitfalls. On the one hand there seems a mismatch between officially modelled ‘likelihood’ statistics (self-reported vic- timisation) and lay perceptions of risk; on the other hand standard survey designs may inadvert- ently exaggerate the extent of the fear of crime 5651-Gadd-Ch18.indd 268 5651-Gadd-Ch18.indd 268 6/16/2011 4:20:29 PM 6/16/2011 4:20:29 PM