Victimisation and fear of crime

The spread of different kinds of criminal victimisation (assault, vandalism, burglary in one’s own home, car theft, pick-pocketing and bag-snatching, robbery, and fraud), and that of concrete and of abstract fear of crime in Italy were studied. The links between criminal victimisation and fear of crime were also analysed. A secondary analysis of the data collected in January 2006 by the Observatory of the North-West (representative sample of the Italian population, N = 4,981) was performed. The main results were as follows. First, the most widespread form of victimisation was vandalism, followed by fraud, and by burglary in one’s own home. Second, as had been found in previous research performed in Italy, abstract fear of crime turned out to be much more widespread than concrete fear of crime. However, while concrete fear showed a constant downward trend in the period from 2002 to 2006, abstract fear showed a downward trend from 2002 to 2004 which then reversed in the next two-year period, reaching its peak in 2006. Third, the victimisation-fear paradox (according to which the social categories showing the highest levels of fear of crime are the less victimised ones) did not fully hold. Fourth, some kinds of victimisation (car theft, assault, fraud, burglary in one’s own home, and vandalism) fostered concrete fear, even if its main predictor was the size of the respondents’ area of residence. By contrast, abstract fear was not influenced by any kind of victimisation, since its main predictors were political placement, minutes of daily exposure to television, income, education, and interest in politics. The limits and possible developments of the research are discussed.