Over the past four decades the fear of crime has become an increasingly significant concern for criminologists, victimologists, policy makers, politicians, police, the media and the general public. For many practitioners reducing fear of crime has become almost as important an issue as reducing crime itself. The identification of fear of crime as a serious policy problem has given rise to a massive amount of research activity, political discussion and intellectual debate. Despite this activity, actually reducing levels of fear of crime has proved difficult. Even in recent years when many western nations have experienced reductions in the levels of reported crime, fear of crime has often proven intractable. The result has been the development of what amounts to a fear of crime industry. Previous studies have identified conceptual challenges, theoretical cul-de-sacs and methodological problems with the use of the concept fear of crime. Yet it has endured as both an organizing principal for a body of research and a term to describe a social malady. This provocative, wide ranging book asks how and why fear of crime retains this cultural, political and social scientific currency despite concerted criticism of its utility? It subjects the concept to rigorous critical scrutiny taking examples from the UK, North America and Australia. Part One of Inventing Fear of Crime traces the historical emergence of the fear of crime concept, while Part Two addresses the issue of fear of crime and political rationality, and analyses fear of crime as a tactic or technique of government. This book will be essential reading on one of the key issues in government and politics in contemporary society.

The creative use of fear by news media and social control organizations has produced a "discurse of fear" - the awareness and expection that danger and risk are lurking everywhere. Case studies illustrates how certain organizations and social institutions benefit from the explotation of such fear construction. One social impact is a manipulated public empathy: We now have more "victims" than at any time in our prior history. Another, more troubling resutl is the role we have ceded to law enforcement and punishment: we turn ever more readily to the state and formal control to protect us from what we fear. This book attempts through the marshalling of significant data to interrupt that vicious cycle of fear discourse.

Why is fear of crime so rife in society today? The government and media have ploughed money and resources into surveys and initiatives to find out. As a concept, 'fear of crime' has produced considerable academic debate, and this book brings together a collection of new and cutting edge articles from key scholars in criminology which question the orthodoxy of 'fear of crime' models.

Studies of the fear of crime have constituted what is undeniably the fastest growing research area within criminology in the last decade and this shows no sign of diminishing. The editors have a distinguished record of innovative research in the field, being responsible for a number of seminal empirical and theoretical articles. In this volume, they have collected together and for the first time, all the most significant contributions to the field. The collection includes an introductory essay by the editors and articles reflecting: an overview of the field; the causes of vulnerability; the sources of information on victimisation; the methods used to survey fear; the theoretical models employed to explain it; and the nature of policies designed to reduce fear.

The Routledge International Handbook on Fear of Crime brings together original and international state of the art contributions of theoretical, empirical, policy-related scholarship on the intersection of perceptions of crime, victimisation, vulnerability and risk. This is timely as fear of crime has now been a focus of scholarly and policy interest for some fifty years and shows little sign of abating. Research on fear of crime is demonstrative of the inter-disciplinarity of criminology, drawing in the disciplines of sociology, psychology, political science, history, cultural studies, gender studies, planning and architecture, philosophy and human geography. This collection draws in many of these interdisciplinary themes. This collections also extends the boundaries of fear of crime research. It does this both methodologically and conceptually, but perhaps more importantly it moves us beyond some of the often repeated debates in this field to focus on novel topics from unique perspectives. The book begins by plotting the history of fear of crime’s development, then moves on to investigate the methodological and theoretical debates that have ensued and the policy transfer that occurred across jurisdictions. Key elements in debates and research on fear of crime concerning gender, race and ethnicity are covered, as are contemporary themes in fear of crime research, such as regulation, security, risk and the fear of terrorism, the mapping of fear of crime and fear of crime beyond urban landscapes. The final sections of the book explore geographies of fear and future and unique directions for this research.

In nowadays' globalised society an international exchange of ideas and views is indispensable within the field of social sciences, including criminology and criminal justice studies.

Studies of the fear of crime are a fast-growing research area within criminology. This volume collects significant contributions to the field and includes an introductory essay by the editors. The articles offer an overview followed by reflection on the causes of vulnerability, the sources of information on victimization, the methods used to survey fear, the theoretical models employed to explain it and the nature of policies designed to reduce fear.