The DOI matches its Crossref record.
The Genesis of `Fear of Crime'
Abstract
The `fear of crime' has, in the past three decades or so, developed as an important area of criminological research and inquiry. Debates have proliferated within and outside of the discipline of criminology about what crime fear might be, the rationality or irrationality of crime fear, which socio-demographic groups are most fearful of crime and why, and how to measure `fear of crime'. This article traces the emergence of `fear of crime' as a topic of criminological and governmental discourse. It argues that `fear of crime' is not a pre-discursive `social fact' but a contingent category born of a set of very particular discursive arrangements and shifts. As such it poses some serious questions about the power effects of doing `fear of crime' research and about the relationships between criminological knowledge and the processes and practices of government.
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“Numerous studies have questioned the appropriateness of surveys and the phrasing of questions to assess perceptions of safety, questioning whether the findings reflect actual perceived safety or fear of crime (Lee, 2001; Jackson, 2005; Gray et al., 2011).”
From Women's perceived safety in public places and public transport: A narrative review of contributing factors and measurement methods (2025) · cites this paper as Lee, 2001
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Research works printed but not linked: 34
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- Ditton, J., The Fear of Crime, 10.4324/9781315086613 · DOI
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Cited by
Dubey, S., Bailey, A., & Lee, J. (. (2025) · Cities · doi:10.1016/j.cities.2024.105534 · Cited by 67
Metadata
- Authors
- LEE, M.
- Affiliations
- Western Sydney University (AU)
- Corresponding author
- LEE, MURRAY
- ORCID
- LEE, MURRAY
- Venue
- Theoretical Criminology
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2001-11
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 467-485
- ISSN
- 1362-4806 (ISSN-L)
- 1461-7439
- OpenAlex
- W1990236763
- Cited by
- 112
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 5.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Theoretical Criminology (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Crime, Deviance, and Social Control
- Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Crime Patterns and Interventions
- Keywords
- fear of crime, history of criminology, criminological discourse
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The Genesis of `Fear of Crime'. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1177/1362480601005004004
- The paper
- LEE, M. (2001). The Genesis of `Fear of Crime'. Theoretical Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480601005004004
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
