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British Journal of Criminology Advance Access published online on May 30, 2009
British Journal of Criminology, doi:10.1093/bjc/azp033
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The British Journal of Criminology 0:azp033 (2009)
© The Author 2009. 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

PUBLIC HEALTH AND FEAR OF CRIME

A Prospective Cohort Study

Jonathan Jackson* and Mai Stafford

* Dr Jonathan Jackson, Methodology Institute, LSE, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK; j.p.jackson{at}lse.ac.uk.


  Abstract

Public insecurities about crime are widely assumed to erode individual well-being and community cohesion. Yet, robust evidence on the link between worry about crime and health is surprisingly scarce. This paper draws on data from a prospective cohort study (the Whitehall II study) to show a strong statistical effect of mental health and physical functioning on worry about crime. Combining with existing evidence, we suggest a feedback model in which worry about crime harms health, which, in turn, serves to heighten worry about crime. We conclude with the idea that, while fear of crime may express a whole set of social and political anxieties, there is a core to worry about crime that is implicated in real cycles of decreased health and perceived vulnerability to victimization. The challenge for future study is to integrate core aspects of the everyday experience of fear of crime with the more layered and expressive features of this complex social phenomenon.

Key Words: fear of crime • public health • vulnerability • longitudinal research


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