Comparing the determinants of concern about terrorism and crime

Global Crime

Volumn 11, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 1-15

  Brück, Tilman ^a   Müller, Cathérine ^a  

^a HUMBOLDT UNIVERSITY   (Germany)

Author keywords

Attitudes; Crime; Fear; Soep; Terrorism

Indexed keywords

EID: 76049109743     PISSN: 17440572     EISSN: 17440580     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/17440570903475634     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
2. Tilman Brück, The Economic Analysis of Terrorism (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007).
3. Paul Slovic, 'Trust, Emotion, Sex, Politics, and Science: Surveying the Risk-Assessment Battlefield', Risk Analysis 19, no. 4 (1999): 689-701.
4. Elke U. Weber, 'Origins and Functions of Perceptions of Risk' (paper presented at NCI Workshop on 'Conceptualizing and Measuring Risk Perceptions', Washington, DC, February 13-14, 2003).
5. George Loewenstein et al., 'Risk as Feelings', Psychological Bulletin 127, no. 2 (2001): 267-86.
6. Jennifer S. Lerner et al., 'Effects of Fear and Anger on perceived Risks of Terrorism: A national field Experiment', Psychological Science 14, no. 2 (2003): 144-50.
7. Lennart Sjöberg, 'Emotions and Risk Perception', Risk Management 9, no. 4 (2007): 223-37.
8. Klaus Boehnke et al., 'The Structure and Dynamics of Worry: Theory, Measurement, and Cross-National Replications', Journal of Personality 66, no. 5 (1998): 745-82.
9. Bruno Frey, Simon Luechinger, and Alois Stutzer, 'Calculating Tragedy: Assessing the Costs of Terrorism', Journal of Economic Surveys 21, no. 1 (2007): 1-24.
10. Alan Kirschenbaum, 'Terror, Adaptation and Preparedness: A Trilogy for Survival', Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management 3, no. 1 (2006), available from: http://www.bepress.com/jhsem/vol3/iss1/3 (accessed January 20, 2009).
11. Jose Garcia-Montalvo, 'Voting after the Bombing: Can Terrorist Attacks Change the Outcome of Democratic Elections?', SSRN, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1002833 (accessed December 12, 2007).
12. Darren Davis and Brian Silver, 'The Threat of Terrorism, Presidential Approval, and the 2004 Election' (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Hilton Chicago and the Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, IL, September 2, 2004).
13. Paul Dolan and Tessa Peasgood, 'Estimating the Economic and Social Costs of the Fear of Crime', British Journal of Criminology 47, no. 1 (2007): 121-32.
14. Throughout this article we use the terms 'concern' and 'worry' interchangeably and refer to the definition of worries 'as cognitions that a state of an object (self, in-group, society, or world) in one or more domains of life (health, security, environment [.]) will become or remain discrepant from its desired state' by Klaus Boehnke et al., 'The Structure and Dynamics of Worry: Theory, Measurement, and Cross-National Replications', Journal of Personality 66, no. 5 (1998): 745-82.
15. Martin Gill and Angela Spriggs, Assessing the Impact of CCTV, Home Office Research Study No. 292 (London: Home Office, 2005).
16. Martin Gill, Jane Bryan, and Jenna Allen, 'Public Perceptions of CCTV in Residential Areas: "It Is Not As Good As We Thought It Would Be"', International Criminal Justice Review 17, no. 4 (2007): 304-25.
17. Klaus Boehnke et al., 'The Structure and Dynamics of Worry: Theory, Measurement, and Cross- National Replications', Journal of Personality 66, no. 5 (1998): 745-82.
18. Steven Box, Chris Hale, and Glen Andrews, 'Explaining Fear of Crime', The British Journal of Criminology 28, no. 3 (1988): 340-56.
19. For on overview of different studies, see Jenelle Baur, 'Fear of Crime: The Impact of Age, Victimisation, Perceived Vulnerability to Victimisation and Neighbourhood Characteristics'. Marden, South Australia: Australasian Centre for Policing Research, available from: http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/ow/225351044 (accessed 20 January, 2009), ACPR, no. 6 (2007).
20. Steven Box, Chris Hale, and Glen Andrews, 'Explaining Fear of Crime', The British Journal of Criminology 28, no. 3 (1988): 340-56.
21. Helmut Kury and Joachim Obergfell-Fuchs, 'Kriminalitätsfurcht und ihre Ursachen', Sicherheit und Kriminalität 1 (2003): 9-18.
22. Jörg Dittmann, 'Fear of Crime in Europe' (paper presented at 5th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, Krakau, Poland, August 30-September 3, 2005).
23. Jonathan Allen, 'Worry About Crime in England and Wales: Findings from the 2003/04 and 2004/05 British Crime Survey', Home Office Online Report 15/06, http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/rdsolr1506.pdf (accessed July 22, 2008).
24. Allen, 'Worry About Crime in England and Wales'.
25. Jürgen Schupp, 'Entwicklung der Kriminalität in Deutschland - Sinkende Sorgen in Deutschland?' (paper presented at 'Soziale Indikatoren' for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie, Leipzig, October 8, 2002).
26. Jonathan Baron, John C. Hershey, and Howard Kunreuther, 'Determinants of Priority for Risk Reduction: The Role of Worry', Risk Analysis 20, no. 4 (2000): 413-28.
27. Jennifer S. Lerner et al., 'Effects of Fear and Anger on Perceived Risks of Terrorism: A National Field Experiment', Psychological Science 14, no. 2 (2003): 144-50.
28. Paul Slovic, 'Trust, Emotion, Sex, Politics, and Science: Surveying the Risk-Assessment Battlefield', Risk Analysis 19, no. 4 (1999): 689-701.
29. Joseph A. Boscarino, Charles R. Figley, and Richard E. Adams, 'Fear of Terrorism in New York After the September 11 Terrorist Attacks: Implications for Emergency Mental Health and Preparedness', International Journal of Emergency Mental Health 5, no. 4 (2003): 199-209.
30. A detailed description of the SOEP is provided by Gert G. Wagner, Joachim R. Frick, and Jürgen Schupp, 'The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) - Scope, Evolution and Enhancements', Schmollers Jahrbuch 127, no. 1 (2007), 139-69.
31. Question from the English questionnaire 'Living in Germany', a survey on the social situation of households. Translation by SOEP. The original question in the German questionnaire: 'Wie ist das mit den folgenden Gebieten - machen Sie sich da Sorgen?'
32. Scott C. Moore and Jonathan Shepherd, 'Gender Specific Emotional Responses to Anticipated Crime', International Review of Victimology 14, no. 3 (2007): 337-51.
33. J. Scott Long and Jeremy Freese, Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables Using Stata. Revised Edition (College Station, TX: Stata Press, 2003).
34. Similar to other studies we find all items of the worry scale to be positively correlated (results available upon request). This is usually attributed to self-reported worries being affected by the tendency of the respondent to generally worry more or less (Boehnke et al., 1998). Worries about security and post-materialistic issues are higher inter-correlated than they are with individual worries.
35. While age is a continuous variable, we constructed age groups for this table for simplicity.
36. The marginal effects for the worry levels regarding the other public and the private goods can be obtained by the authors upon request.
37. To disentangle the socio-economic effect of higher education from the effect it might have on risk assessment, we combined information given on income, created income group dummies, and used them to control for the socio-economic status. However, for simplicity they are not displayed in the regression outputs. Besides income groups we also used home ownership as a proxy for the socio-economic status of a respondent. It is negatively correlated with all concern items except for those about peace. Nevertheless, it only has a significant impact on individual worries which could be expected.
38. Detailed results of the estimations can be obtained from the authors upon request.