Cognitive Maps and the Fear of Crime (From Atlas of Crime: Mapping the Criminal Landscape, P 192-198, 2000, Linda S. Turnbull, Elaine Hallisey Hendrix, eds, et al., -- See NCJ-193465

• NCJ Number: 193488
• Author(s): Patricia Gilmartin
• Date Published: 2000
• Length: 7 pages
• Sale Source: Oryx Press
• Publication Format: Book (Hardbound)
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter examines the fear of crime linked to a specific place or time that may influence one’s behavior.

Abstract

Detailed cognitive maps exist in the heads of people where the risk of being a victim of crime is relatively high. These cognitive maps may range in scale from the national or even international to one’s own neighborhood. They may be accurate or inaccurate but they are important for several reasons. Cognitive maps serve as a survival function by warning one away from those places and thus have a direct impact on spatial behavior. Cognitive maps affect a sense of well-being or apprehension associated with specific places. Because cognitive maps of crime are somewhat different for different groups of people, they demonstrate the differential effects of crime (or the perception of it) for those groups. It is not uncommon for people’s fear of crime to exceed actual crime rates, a phenomenon that some researchers have linked to perceived physical and social incivilities in an area, such as vacant buildings or public drunkenness and drug dealing. The accuracy of cognitive maps of crime also may be a product of ecological labels that some people attach to certain areas. Ecological labels are expectations of particular behavioral patterns that people attach to specific places. Compared to men, women are much more fearful of being crime victims, have different perceptions of what environments pose the greatest risk to their personal safety and in response limit or alter their spatial mobility more than men. Other important factors in explaining people’s fear of crime are actual crime rate, age, personal experience with victimization, and evaluation of the local police. Various analyses of reasons for the fear of crime by the elderly conclude that their fear is in part a symbolic fear related to general feelings of physical vulnerability, powerlessness, fear of the future, and a lack of political, social, and economic resources. Statistics show that women and the elderly are at less risk of violence than men or young people but their worries are much greater. 4 figures, 27 references