The Fear of Crime: Causes and Consequences

Abstract

In a paper presented more than eight years ago, Furstenberg made an observation that has proven to be understatement of decade for researchers studying fear of crime: the relationship between crime and its consequences is neither obvious nor simple.' His observation is no less accurate today than it was eight years ago, despite fact that our knowledge about causes and consequences of fear of crime has increased steadily during period. Every advance that is made-whether by refining concepts, by specifying and testing relationships, by obtaining more comprehensive data, or by some other meansseems to generate more questions than it answers. But that should be expected; part of nature of complex social phenomena is that their complexity becomes more apparent as they are examined more closely.