Anxieties About Modernization, Concerns About Community, and Fear of Crime

• DOI: 10.1177/1057567712475307
• Author: Stephen Farrall,Helmut Hirtenlehner
• Published date: 01 March 2013
• Date: 01 March 2013
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Anxieties About

Modernization, Concerns

About Community, and Fear

of Crime: Testing Two

Related Models

Helmut Hirtenlehner

1

and Stephen Farrall

2

Abstract

In contemporary European criminology, there is a growing understanding of the fear of crime as the

consequence of, and a code for, broader social anxieties, the origins of which are usually traced to

fundamental social and global transformation processes characteristic of late modernity. Within the

large body of paperspublished on this topic,one can differentiate betweentwo distinct perspectives:a

generalized insecurity approach, according to which free-floating, amorphous anxieties about

modernization are directly projected onto crime, and an expanded community concern approach,

whereby abstract anxieties about social change require the prism of local conditions in order to

convert intofear of crime. Here, these two perspectivesare examined on the basis of surveydata from

Austria. The results provide support for both approaches, with slight advantages for the generalized

insecurity model. We also demonstrate that large parts of the frequently reported association

between concerns about incivility and fear of crime can be traced to their common roots in broader

social anxieties. Questionsare raised pertaining to the generalizabilityof the findings and a comparative

research agenda is encouraged which acknowledges that pathways into fear of crime may differ from

country to country, depending on the sociocultural and political–institutional makeup of a society.

Keywords

fear of crime, insecurity, comparative criminology

Introduction

Fear of crime is a complex and multifaceted social phenomenon. One recent contribution has

tried to grapple with this; Farrall, Jackson, and Gray (2009) outlined an analytical differentiation

1

Centre for Criminology, University of Linz, Linz, Austria

2

School of Law, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

Corresponding Author:

Helmut Hirtenlehner, Centre for Criminology, Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Altenberger Strasse 69, A – 4040 Linz,

Austria.

Email: helmut.hirtenlehner@jku.at

International CriminalJustice Review

23(1) 5-24

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DOI: 10.1177/1057567712475307

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of two phenotypes of fear of crime, which have to be seen as ideal-typical poles of a continuum.

Therein, they delimitate concrete episodes of fear in perceived situations of threat (experiential fear)

from a communicative employment of crime as a synonym for a general discontent with the living

conditions in late modernity (expressive fear). Expressive fear denotes an overarching negative

social sensitivity, which utilizes crime as a symbolically loaded cipher for the discourse on society

and its ailments. While the authors tend to locate the determinants of experiential fear in factors

close to crime and victimization, the meaning of expressive fear can be grasped only in recourse

to a variety of other insecurities whose breeding ground is formed by the social, cultural, economic,

and political upheaval processes characterizing contemporary Western societies. Very much in line

with this, numerous recent criminological works assume that the versatile anxieties and concerns

brought about by rapid and profound social change build the true foundation for crime-related

feelings of insecurity (Ewald, 2000; Gadd & Jefferson, 2009; Girling, Loader, & Sparks, 2000; Hir-

tenlehner, 2006, 2008a, 2009; Hollway & Jefferson, 1997; Jackson, 2004, 2006, 2009; Jefferson &

Hollway, 2000; Sessar, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2010; Taylor, Evans, & Fraser, 1996; Taylor & Jamieson,

1998; Walklate & Mythen, 2008). Despite the high level of common ground with regard to viewing

unease about social transformation processes as the source of fear of crime, these works differ

significantly with regard to their presumptions pertaining to (1) the range of fears that are interwoven

with crime and (2) the mechanisms that link other fears or anxieties to fear of crime. Generally, one

can differentiate between two ‘‘paradigms’’ (Hough, 2009):

a broader approach, according to which fear of crime is more or less directly rooted in abstract

anxieties about modernization—‘‘diffuse anxieties brought on by social and economic

changes’’ (Roberts, Stalans, Indermaur, & Hough, 2003, p. 61)—and which accords largely

equivalent significance to global, national, and local fears (generalized insecurity approach),

as well as,

a narrower approach, which centers much of its attention on the perception of the social and

moral ‘‘health’’ of the community and according to which a deep-seated sense of insecurity fed

by wider social change requires the prism of local conditions in order to generate fear of crime

(expanded community concern approach).

In the following, both perspectives on the development of expressive fear of crime are pre-

sented in greater detail and empirically assessed on the basis of survey data collected in Linz, Aus -

tria. Similarities and differences found to exist between the two perspectives will be identified and

translated into linear structural equation models (SEMs), which are examined comparatively first

and then brought together in a more integrative type of modeling strategy. The article closes with a

discussion of the implications of our results for international research on the formation of anxieties

about crime.

Two Literatures Linking Social Change and Fear of Crime

We are well aware that there are other approaches of explaining fear of crime. Plenty of studies

examine the effects of personal or vicarious victimization, media coverage of crime, neighborhood

composition and local crime rates, individual vulnerability, and so forth, on fear of crime (Boers,

2003; Hale, 1996; Warr, 2000). Usually, these studies report unsatisfactory low proportions of

explained variance in worries about criminal victimization. Sometimes, when admitting the low

explanatory power of their models, the authors of these studies refer to social anxieties as an

important but omitted predictor variable (e.g., Hirtenlehner, 2008b; Zarafonitou, 2009). Quantitative

research directly assessing the impact of broader anxieties on fear of crime, however, has remained

scarce up to now.

6International Criminal Justice Review 23(1)