Fear of Crime and Neighborhood Change

Abstract

Crime rates and the quality of life do not necessarily change in direct response to changes in the physical and social characteristics of neighborhoods. Developments that have an indirect effect on increasing crime rates and fear of crime include neighborhood disinvestment, demolition and construction activities, demagoguery, and deindustrialization. Other factors such as government programs, collective neighborhood action, and individual initiatives and interventions help to maintain neighborhood stability. Fear of crime in declining neighborhoods does not always accurately reflect actual crime levels. It is derived from primary and secondary knowledge of neighborhood crime rates, observable evidence of physical and social disorder, and prejudices arising from changes in neighborhood ethnic composition. Regardless of its source, fear of crime may stimulate and accelerate neighborhood decline. Increasing fear of crime may cause individuals to withdraw physically and psychologically from community life. This weakens informal processes of social control that inhibit crime and disorder, and it produces a decline in the organizational life and the mobilization capacity of a neighborhood. Fear may also contribute to the deterioration of business conditions. The importation and local production of delinquency and deviance may also be influenced by perceptions of neighborhood crime rates. Changes in the composition of the resident population may be stimulated by the cumulative effects of fear. Fear of crime does not inevitably encourage or result in urban decline as "gentrification" demonstrates.