Page 177 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 1

IPS129 Claudia V. et al.
Observing the mismatch between crime and its fear and the relevance it
has at a social and political level, warrants further investigations of the aspects
which might affect the personal perception of crime. For instance,
demographic factors (such as age or gender), local factors (if it is a dark or
crowded street) and others, such as the amount and style of media coverage
of crime. How then should the mismatch between crime and its fear be
explained and how does the fear of crime emerge as a social phenomenon?
Furthermore, how can policies be designed to tackle this complex social issue
if it is not clearly understood? Having data or observations to validate the
analysis would be ideal, however, at an individual scale, it is almost impossible
to measure the impact that suffering a crime has compared to the impact of
other aspects of fear (for instance, hearing that a neighbour suffered a crime
as opposed to being the actual victim of that crime). Observations at an
individual scale are typically based on victimisation surveys, which frequently
do not track the fears of the same individuals over time.
Fig.2. Social Decay or Incivilities rate (2002/2016) In Italy, we observe a widespread fear of
crime and risk of victimisation that has
pushed crime to the top of the political
agenda. In this context, it would be crucial
to be able to answer, to name but a few,

Fig.3 – Concrete fear rate (2009/2016)

questions like ‘What is the relative
seriousness of different crimes?’, ‘How
much do people spend for fear of crime?’.
We need to consider the further source of
distortions represented by the (incautious
use of) official crime statistics, which being
affected by a variable underreporting bias across offences can induce
misperception about the effective crime rates and generate false myths as to
what offence is on the rise. As is well known, reported crimes represent just
the tip of a (sometimes big) iceberg. We said before that criminal activities
have a strong impact on the community, but of course it is reasonable to
expect that different types of crime produce different social costs.

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