Social Responses to Collective Crime: Assessing the Relationship Between Crime-Related Fears and Collective Sentiments

Abstract

The literature on the effects of fear of crime has investigated a number of the nuances of this phenomenon; however, how the fear of different types of crime influences communities has yet to be investigated. We hypothesize that the fear–decline model, which argues fear leads to a decrease in solidarity, applies to ‘routine’ street crimes; however, fearing crimes that attack the collective, such as school shootings, will increase community solidarity. Using two datasets collected in Finnish communities after they experienced tragic school shootings, our results indicate that the fear–decline model receives strong support but the fear–solidarity model does not.

Full text (journals.sagepub.com)

Authors

James Hawdon, Pekka Räsänen, Atte Oksanen, Miika Vuori

Additional Information

• Peer-Reviewed: yes.
• Open Access: no.
• Cite as: Hawdon, J., Räsänen, P., Oksanen, A., & Vuori, M. (2013). Social Responses to Collective Crime: Assessing the Relationship Between Crime-Related Fears and Collective Sentiments. European Journal of Criminology, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370813485516