Public attitudes and fear of crime victimization: assessing the role of attitude formation theory

A review of the current literature indicates that, despite the large quantity of research on fear of crime, it has remained an elusive concept that is difficult to measure and assess. Research findings on this issue are varied and often contradictory and, in general, appear to lack a synthesizing theory. This lack of synthesis appears to be especially prevalent with regard to an understanding of public perceptions of crime in general versus public perceptions of specific crimes. It is suggested that the application of attitude formation and response theory might provide a more comprehensive understanding of this general/specific fear of crime issue. Specifically, it is argued that attitude formation and response theory might better explain why public perceptions of general and specific crimes are skewed and what cognitive factors lead to this discrepancy. As such, the current study had two major objectives. The first goal of this study was to compare perceived and actual crime rates to determine if people are able to accurately assess the occurrence of both general and specific crime in their areas. The second of the research was to apply attitude formation theory to interpret fear of crime, specifically with regard to cognitive antecedents and responses. As expected, results indicate that subjects are inaccurate in their assessment of general crime rates but very accurate in terms of their assessment of specific crime rates. In addition, there was a significant relationship between subjects’ attitudinal antecedents and their responses regarding fear of crime. Findings are discussed in terms of improvements to the measurement of fear of crime and associated responses to this phenomenon.