Keeping Trouble at a Safe Distance

The fear of crime is widely accepted as a social problem across the globe, but there is no valid analysis of it. Taking a social psychological approach, this book searches for suitable explanations to this highly complex allocation of interacting perceptions. The goal of this analysis was to find out at what level of psychological distance citizens primarily experience 'the fear of crime' and how they construct it. The research utilized a broad range of both qualitative and quantitative techniques, such as historical discourse analysis, free associative interviewing, sorting of photo's through Q-methodology, and Structural Equation Modelling. The results show that citizens are highly motivated to keep the trouble of crime at a safe distance. Even to those who assess crime to be a highly significant risk outside one's own front door, 'the fear of crime' is a distant and abstract social problem. This book will be of interest to a broad range of people involved in social sciences, especially those interested in the disciplines of criminology, sociology, and social psychology. [Subject: Criminology, Social Psychology]