Fear of Crime Among the Elderly - Some Issues and Suggestions

• NCJ Number: 71026
• Journal: Social Problems Volume: 27 Issue: 4 Dated: (April 1980) Pages: 492-504
• Author(s): P P Yin
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 13 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

This article reviews literature on the elderly's fear of crime and its determinants, presents a conceptual framework for evaluating these works, and discusses variations in fear among the elderly.

Abstract

The conceptual framework organizes the findings of the literature and establishes the interrelationships between hypotheses. It uses specific independent variables to identify the fearful individuals, as well as social and psychological determinants of the fear of crime. The strength of the existing literature lies in the relative abundance of research on the relationship between the two variables which identify fearful persons -- demographic characteristics and residential locale -- and fear of crime. Weaknesses of the literature include the lack of definition concerning fear of crime and the absence of explanations concerning the variation of fear of crime among people of similar demographic characteristics and residential locale. Four types of social variables are used to explain this variation: previous victimization experience, interactions about crime, extensiveness of social support network, and involvement in neighborhood networks. Older persons consider themselves to have high probabilities of becoming victims even though they are the least victimized age group according to the results of the National Crime Survey. One explanation involves the multidimensional nature of crime and fear of crime in that the composite crime figure can mask differences in the rate of specific crimes. For example, the elderly are among the most victimized age group for personal larceny with contact. Also, the sources of social determinants--interactions about crime, extensiveness of social support networks, and involvement in neighborhood networks--disproportionately affect the elderly. Finally, consequences of the fear of crime are discussed. Overall findings indicate that the temporal ordering of events in relation to fear of crime has yet to be clarified, and the exact problematic nature of fear of crime is not yet certain. References and a chart are included.