Urban Policing and the Fear of Crime
The interplay between policing strategies and the fear of crime in urban areas has only recently garnered the attention it warrants. There are two main reasons for this. The  rst revolves around the relatively ambiguous or undeveloped exploration of the linkage between crime and the fear of crime. The second reason hinges on the  rst: amorphous knowledge of the crime–fear of crime nexus has compelled police agencies, until fairly recently, to target speci c crimes and only generally to address fear of crime. This paper focuses on the relationships between various policing strategies and fear of crime in urban areas. How does fear of crime affect policing and do policing strategies deliberately and/or unwittingly impact on residents’ fear of crime?
Fear of Crime in the Sanctuary: Comparing American and Ghanaian University Students’ Fearfulness
While much is known about fear of crime in the West, little is known about how fearfulness of crime develops in non-Western societies, especially among university students. Representing the first attempt to empirically compare levels of fear of crime between Ghanaian and U.S. college students, this article examined students’ levels of fear of crime on campus, and tested the applicability of two evolving models of fear of crime—the vulnerability and reassurance models—using comparative data. The general finding is that Ghanaian and U.S. college students differ in terms of their rates of fearfulness on campus. This significant difference adds to the already existing differences between the two countries.
Declining Homicide in New York City: A Tale of Two Trends
The mass media pay plenty of attention to crime and violence in the United States, but very few of the big stories on the American crime beat can be classified as good news. The driveby shootings and carjackings that illuminate nightly news broadcasts are the opposite of good tidings. Most efforts at prevention and law enforcement seem more like reactive attempts to contain ever expanding problems rather than discernable public triumphs. In recent American history, crime rates seem to increase on the front page and moderate in obscurity. The recent decline in homicides in New York City is an exception to the usual pattern, the most celebrated example of crime-news-as-good-news in decades. No doubt part of the public attention can be explained because the story took place in the media capital of the United States. But more than location made the New York story newsworthy. The drop in homicides was both large and abrupt-the homicide rate in the nation's largest city fell 52% in five years. Further, changes in police manpower and strategy are widely believed to have contributed to the decline. If this drop can be plausibly tied to enforcement