Different measures of fear of crime and survey measurement error

The measurement of fear of crime is acknowledged as a hot methodological issue. Many studies have focused on the cognitive and behavioural components of fear. The emotional affective component of fear of crime has been studied rather less, however. Traditional measures of fear of crime fail to address the complexity of this concept. Knowledge of prevalence, frequency and intensity of fear are largely absent in a quantitative design. Following an alternative question structure, previous research has shown that ‘old’-style questions overestimate the everyday experience of fear (see Farrall, 2004; Farrall and Gadd, 2004; Gray, Jackson and Farrall, 2008). Furthermore, gender differences in fear of crime seem to be influenced by socially desirable answers by men (Sutton and Farrall, 2005). In this paper, we study differences in outcomes when measuring fear of crime using ‘old’-style questions (’avoidance behaviour’) and an alternative question structure introduced by Stephen Farrall (three-part questions treating prevalence, frequency and intensity of fear). We conducted a survey (2008) in eighteen postal code areas and interviewed 750 key informants. Descriptive analyses by gender were conducted for both the traditional avoidance behaviour scale and the alternative question structure that measures the emotional affective component of fear of crime. Subsequently some correlational analyses were conducted to examine how different these fear of crime measures are from supposed covariates such as perceived sense of community, perceived disorder and previous victimisation. Furthermore, we assessed the effects of social desirability on measures of fear of crime components and on the gender-fear relationship in particular. In short, measuring the emotional affective component of fear with an alternative question structure presents a totally different picture than can be found by measuring the behavioural component of fear of crime with a traditional scale such as avoidance behaviour. Second, different measures of fear of crime are especially differentially related to previous victimisation. Third, we found rather surprising effects of social desirability on gender differences in fear of crime

Testing procedural justice theory in Belgium and Sweden

Procedural justice theory assumes that trust in procedural justice and in the effectiveness of the police are important issues for building the legitimacy of the aforementioned institution. Additionally, the perception of police legitimacy, as a result of public trust, is necessary for the recognition of police authority. When citizens recognize the right of the police to determine authority, they are assumed to feel the obligation to obey the police and ultimately comply with the law and cooperate with the police. This theoretical framework is mainly tested in Anglo-Saxon countries. Hence, the purpose of this contribution is to test the key assumptions of procedural justice theory in the Belgian and Swedish context using data of the European Social Survey (ESS). Attention is paid not only to the role of procedural justice, but also to the role of deterrence and the role of personal morality to explain the willingness to cooperate with the police and compliance with the law. This allows us to compare the impact of procedural justice with the impact of other possible determinants. We used Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to do the analyses. The results suggest that the reason why people cooperate with the police is different in both countries

Explaining support for vigilantism and punitiveness: assessing the role of perceived procedural fairness, ethnocentrism, authoritarianism and anomia

The purpose of this study is to investigate the interrelationships among ethnocentrism, authoritarianism, anomia, the lack of confidence in the criminal justice system, punitiveness and support for vigilantism in a cross-sectional sample of 1,078 Belgian university students enrolled at Ghent University during the academic year 2009-2010. The emphasis lies on confidence in procedural justice or perceived procedural fairness, a specific type of organisational justice perception that reflects how fairly organisational procedures of the criminal justice system are perceived. First, it is assessed to what extent ethnocentrism, authoritarianism and anomia can equally explain individual differences in perceived procedural fairness of the criminal justice system, punitiveness and support for vigilantism. Ethnocentrism, anomia and authoritarianism are from a theoretical point of view hypothesised as exogenous variables that especially (but not exclusively) have indirect effects on public support for vigilantism mainly because of their effects on perceived procedural fairness in the criminal justice system and punitiveness. Finally, it is investigated to what extent punitiveness can be seen as the key mediator of the effects of all exogenous mechanisms (ethnocentrism, authoritarianism, anomia) and perceptions of procedural fairness as an endogenous mechanism on public support for vigilantism. Direct and indirect effects between latent variables are assessed using a structural equation modelling approach (full LISREL models)