Abstract
The lack of organisation in urban spaces plays a decisive role in the level of integration, communication and social bonds of the residents, impacting the citizens’ feelings of trust and security. Different personal variables and contextual characteristics have been associated with the fear of crime (FOC). The main objective of this study is to analyse how individual and social/environmental variables, and incivilities, predict crime against people and property, crime that has either happened or is feared to happen. Five hundred and fifty-four residents (M = 43.82; SD = 18.38) in the Historic Centre of Porto (HCP), Portugal, answered 61 items of the Diagnosis of Local Security (DLS) Questionnaire. The results of this study show that in the most frequent crime category, 72% of occurrences represent crime against property. In the feared crime category, there is a preponderance of crime against people (61%). Age of the respondents predicted the most frequent and feared crime, while sex predicted the most feared crime only. Social/environmental variables, as well as incivilities, also predict the frequent and feared crime in two typologies, i.e., crime against people and crime against property. Practical implications to reduce FOC and areas for further investigation are discussed.
Highlights
Past research shows that the physical and social characteristics of a given community/urban space play a crucial role in people’s perception of security (Adams 2012), adversely impacting the quality of life of citizens and their physical and mental health (Rader and Haynes 2012)
The present study focuses on the Historic Centre of Porto (HCP) (Azevedo et al 2021b) and is based on the need to understand the fear of crime (FOC) as a contextually specific problem, based in a place and captured by people’s emotional and behavioural responses, which can lead to the resolution of social problems (Solymos et al 2020)
From a list of twelve social/environmental variables, participants were expected to select the ones they could identify in the HCP (“From the following list, choose the conditions that, in HCP, most seem to favour the occurrence of crime—choose one or more options”)
Summary
Past research shows that the physical and social characteristics of a given community/urban space play a crucial role in people’s perception of security (Adams 2012), adversely impacting the quality of life of citizens and their physical and mental health (Rader and Haynes 2012). Socially disorganized urban spaces tend to significantly impact the level of integration, communication and the social bond of residents, which are essential to promote and build feelings of trust and security in the population (Swatt et al 2013). It has been argued that, faced with the threat of victimization, people tend to restrict their daily activities by avoiding specific places or interacting with certain people, increasing social isolation and, negatively impacting people’s quality of life (Rader and Haynes 2012). This study aims to understand how specific individual, socio/environmental and incivility variables could contribute to predict crime against people and property, either frequent or feared
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