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British Journal of Criminology Advance Access originally published online on May 30, 2006
British Journal of Criminology 2007 47(1):133-153; doi:10.1093/bjc/azl025
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The British Journal of Criminology 47:133-153 (2007)
© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The Relationship Between Likelihood and Fear of Criminal Victimization

Evaluating Risk Sensitivity as a Mediating Concept

Derek Chadee, Liz Austen and Jason Ditton*

* Derek Chadee, ANSA McAL Psychological Research Centre and Department of Behavioural Sciences, University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad. Liz Austen, Faculty of Development and Society, Sheffield Hallam University, England. Jason Ditton, Department of Law, University of Sheffield, England, and Scottish Centre for Criminology, Glasgow, Scotland. j.n.ditton{at}sheffield.ac.uk.

Crime surveys typically ask respondents how ‘likely’ they think it is that they will become a crime victim in the future. The responses are interpreted here as ‘risk’ statements. An investigation of the risk literature shows the concept to be considerably more complex than at first imagined, but shows that individual risk predictions are largely based on interpretations far removed from rational considerations of likelihood based on recorded crime rates. Responses from three waves of a longitudinal crime survey conducted in Trinidad are examined in this light. It is concluded that fear of criminal victimization might best be considered as differential sensitivity to predicted risk.


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