Fear of crime among older people has been a frequent topic in ageing research, criminology and urban studies. The ‘environmental docility hypothesis’ assumes that older people are more vulnerable to adverse neighbourhood conditions than younger age groups. Yet, few studies have tested this influential hypothesis using samples of respondents covering the complete adult lifespan. Looking at fear of crime, we investigated the person–environment interaction of age and neighbourhood disadvantage, using two independent surveys comprising 12,620 respondents aged 25–90 years residing in 435 neighbourhoods in four cities in Germany and Australia. We used multi-level analysis and cross-level interactions to model age-differential effects of neighbourhood disadvantage on fear. Contrary to the hypothesis, we found a weakening of neighbourhood effects on fear with age. The strong effect of neighbourhood disadvantage on fear of crime dropped by around half from the youngest (25 years) to the oldest age (90 years) in both countries. Younger people were almost as fearful as older people in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods, but older people were considerably more fearful than younger ages in better-off neighbourhoods. We found limited empirical support for the assumption that this diminished association between neighbourhood disadvantage and fear can be explained by the stronger neighbourhood attachment of older people. The limitations of the analysis and potential future directions of research are discussed.

Previous research shows the benefits of volunteerism to individuals and communities. The purpose of this study was to determine whether lower perceived neighbourhood safety is associated with reduced volunteerism and whether this association differs by sex. Data from the 2008 Health and Retirement Study in the United States of America were used (N = 13,009 adults 60 years and older). Multivariate logistic regression models were estimated to assess the association between perceived neighbourhood safety and volunteerism while controlling for potential confounders. Perceived neighbourhood safety was associated with volunteering. The odds of volunteering were higher for those rating their perceived neighbourhood safety as excellent compared with those rating their perceived neighbourhood safety as fair/poor. Those rating their perceived neighbourhood safety as very good also had greater odds of volunteering than those rating their perceived neighbourhood safety as fair/poor. Results differed somewhat by gender. Men who perceived their neighbourhood safety as excellent had increased odds of volunteering. The association of neighbourhood safety with volunteerism was significant for women rating their perceived neighbourhood safety as excellent or very good. Among men, being married was associated with increased odds of volunteering; being completely or partly retired was associated with increased odds of volunteering among women. Initiatives aimed at improving older adults’ perceptions of safety would help improve volunteerism, which is beneficial to both older adults and communities.

Criminal offenses ignite the political debate. Questions about the causes, development, and combating of crime touch on widespread fears; those who make them their subject can be sure of public attention. This Article looks at 242 press releases of the German right-wing populist party, the Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland; AfD) from 2018 dealing with criminal offenses. It examines which crime phenomena the reports describe, which perpetrator and victim images they project, and how crime and immigration are depicted as related threats.

Fear of crime has been the focus of fruitful criminological investigation for the last 50 years. Simultaneously, the literature related to intimate partner violence has also been developing. Empirical studies have neglected the association between fear of crime and violence committed in private spaces, so this research seeks to provide an integrated approach to these concepts. Using the data from the first Brazilian National Victimization Survey, this research aims to explore how fear of violence in intimate relationships is associated with both individual and macro-contextual variables, in an ecological framework as proposed by Heise. Statistical analyses were conducted by aggregating data, and the analytical model integrated both individual- and macro-level variables and took the fear of intimate partner violence as the outcome variable. The results demonstrate a strong association between the fear of intimate partner violence and the individual-level predictors tested, especially previous victimization as well as social inequality (Gini coefficient). This way, results indicate that fear of crime manifests its predictors far beyond what the dyad “victim–aggressor” may suggest.

Due to their age and lifestyle, female students in general are at an increased risk of various forms of sexual violence. Particular sociocultural contexts also form the background of gender-based violence in professional and academic structures. Yet despite institutional and legal efforts to protect (potential) survivors of sexual violence from primary (and secondary) victimization, persistent assaults demonstrate the reluctance of organizations and individuals to fully accept women’s experiences as being physically and psychologically harmful. Based on quantitative and qualitative data obtained in the context of the European research project “Gender-Based Violence, Stalking and Fear of Crime”,1 this article presents a comparative analysis of the prevalence of sexual violence, feelings of safety (or a lack thereof) and the reasons for (non-)disclosure for five European countries. A dataset of about 21,000 responses from German, British, Italian, Spanish and Polish students indicates that sexualized violence is a major problem at universities and that it has yet to be recognized as such. This – added to the fact that it is generally suppressed or concealed by universities – makes it society’s problem as well. The article discusses widespread social myths about victims and perpetrators, the role of the new media in victimization, and the issues of universities’ responsibility for their students (through institutional policy and specific responses to incidents of gender-based violence). The results presented here demonstrate the contradictory perceptions that students have in regard to their experiences and the nature of sexualized violence in an academic environment.

Fear of crime has always been a major topic in the popular media and for public policy. Consequences of fear of crime are salient for citizens' and the community's quality of life. Since the late 1970s, there has been a much scholarly attention paid to the role of disorder in producing fear of crime and further producing adverse community consequences. Particularly influential works were Wilson and Kelling's paper (1982) and Skogan's work (1990); these works greatly influenced public policy in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Greene and Taylor 1988; Ferraro 1994). The salient feature of this research is its emphasis on the role of community context, analyzing how disorder generates fear of crime and leads to community decline at the street block and neighborhood level. The impact of fear of crime extends beyond the victims of the crimes, and indicates the salience of the social aspect of fear of crime. Therefore, neighborhood effects are highly relevant to the understanding of fear of crime. Scholars have recognized that individuals' fear is better understood within a neighborhood or community context. The purpose of the present study is to build upon prior work to address critical questions of neighborhood effects on fear of crime under context of contemporary urban China. Using multilevel analyses of data from Tianjing, China, this paper found that neighborhood context variables have effect on fear of crime independent of individual characteristics.

This article explores how young Brazilian men from poorer areas transcend socio-geographical boundaries by inhabiting the streets of an elite neighbourhood. Drawing on several periods of qualitative fieldwork, the article demonstrates the complex and dynamic character of the relationship between the young men and the formal residents and traders. It reveals temporal patterns of day and night, where the young men's social positions shift from subordinate diurnal (as serving workers) to dominant nocturnal positions (as potential attackers). Analysing the interactional patterns between the two groups regarding sentiments of trust and fear, the multifaceted and sometimes incoherent relations reveal social inclusion and exclusion as well as street protection and crime. The article also dismantles some common dichotomies within research on crime and fear of crime, emphasising that these young men are both victims and offenders, fearful and fearsome.

This paper takes the quality of life in the neighbourhood as a starting point and appeals to the framework of Age-friendly Cities to gain insights in how ‘the neighbourhood as a physical surrounding’ can either promote or hinder feelings of unsafety in later life. It examines the impact of the perceived design of the neighbourhood on feelings of unsafety in later life. Literature on the relationship between feelings of unsafety and the neighbourhood mainly concentrates on incivilities and disorder. Other physical-spatial features of the neighbourhood are rarely taken into consideration. Using data generated from the Belgian Ageing Studies (N=25,980) multivariate analyses indicate that a neighbourhood which is perceived to be physically adapted to the needs of older people (in terms of accessibility and distance to services) heightens feelings of safety. The findings demonstrate the need to reduce behaviour constraints by redesigning fear-related physical features. This conclusion raises practical implications and formulates a number of policy recommendations to tackle feelings of unsafety in an ageing society.