Fear Of Crime

Over the past few decades, there have been many approaches in which have evolved surrounding American policing. From an institution which was originally known for being conservative and often times resistance to chance, many approaches began to emerge and eventually become adopted, in result of several studies suggesting the “standard model” of policing as ineffective, civil unrest, and the challenges of a rapidly evolving society during the 1970s. According to Kelling et al. (1974) and Superman and Broken (1981), such studies suggested that standardized practices, such as, preventative patrol or responding rapidly to police calls had a very little impact on crime itself or the fear of crime within communities (As cited in Weisburd and Eck,

2004). Such criticism and factors eventually led to the most innovative period in American policing, which included approaches such as, community policing, problem oriented policing, and hot-spots policing.
In comparison to rigid, “one-size-fits-all” approach offered by the standard model of policing, recent innovations of policing have tend to expand beyond the standard model and focus on two dimensions, which include the diversity of approaches and practices applied and the level of focus or targeting of police activities (Weisburd and Eck, 2004). Such trends and dimensions are present in community policing. Community policing, is extremely difficult to define as the definition has come to vary over time and among different agencies; however, many programs according to Wycoff (1998) share the same philosophy and strive to take seriously the citizenry’s definition of crime, solve the identified issues, and involve citizens in the solutions to combat the issues (As cited in Hall, 1990).
According to Hall (1990), community policing programs often share common objectives and goals, which include the reduction of the fear of crime within the community; reduction in crime and disorder; increased satisfaction with the police and their services; and increased job satisfaction among the police. Over the years, reducing the fear of crime, according Cordner and Melekian (2010), due to falling crime rates and stable or increasing levels of fear, has received a renewed interest among police agencies to develop strategies that reduce fear among the citizenry. Fear of crime, Warr (2000) noted, affects far more individuals in the community than crime itself and has a huge impact on society as individuals often choose to live and socialize based on the perceptions on how safe a community, neighborhood or town is. A strategy used by police officers to combat fear of crime was to take part in preventive measures, which only became more effective when linked with community policing (Cordner and Melekian, 2010).
The available research and evidence generally has come to support that community policing does in fact make individuals within a community feel safer, thereby reducing their overall fear of crime (Cordner and Melekian, 2010).

However, while such policies have had success in combating the fear of crime within neighborhoods, there are still many problems associated with them that need to be addressed. Such issues include, the inability to form a consensus about the definition of fear of crime (Warr, 2000); the inability to differentiate between fear and other cognitive and emotional components, such as anxiety, worry, or concern about crime (Cordner and Melekian, 2010); how to measure the construct, of fear as most studies who measure the link between fear and crime use unidimensional definitions and do not differentiate between crime types, therefore assuming no variations of fear among different types of crime, individuals, and geographic locations (Rountree, 1998; Warr, 2000); to properly differentiate between the measures of perceived risk and measures of fear as they do not behave similar in respect to other variables (Rountree and Land 1996); to use the appropriate time interval or unit of analysis to capture events correctly in order to avoid overlooking crucial aspects of fear (Warr, 2000); and how to correctly regulate the fear of

crime.
In order to adequately address both the failures and successes associated with policy centered around community policing and the fear of crime, review of the literature and further research is needed. After reviewing all the appropriate material is reviewed and qualitative research, this current paper will propose a new policy program in which aims to address previous failures and highlight only successes that have been empirically proven. Given the various strategies that could be utilized, information will also be provided on how to properly implement and evaluate the program. It is not intended that the proposed policy will solve all the issues associated with community policing, but aims to add to the body of literature surrounding this topic and provide insight on how to effectively implement evidenced based strategies and efficiently evaluate their impending results.
Rationale for Review
During the 1970’s, as mentioned above, the dominant approach to policing was a professional model in which focused on training, policing, supervision, and technology in order to establish efficient policing, however, key studies determined that such strategies were not productive in establishing efficient policing (Cordner and Melekian, 2010). The aftermath of these studies resulted in a philosophy that “nothing worked” in policing, which in turn, spurred an era of experimentation and evaluation in policing. As these new strategies began to evolve, as mentioned above, it became evident that something else was needed.
Crime prevention techniques and strategies emerged during this time period in which are designed to prevent crime, however, Dalgleish and Myhill (2004) noted, whether such measures are able to also reduce the fear of crime is an important question without too many answers (As cited in Cordner and Melekian, 2010). There is plenty of evidence Taylor (2002) and Xu, Fiedler and Flaming (2005) demonstrated in which suggest that communities who enjoy social cohesion, social capital, collective efficacy and neighborliness tend to experience less fear of crime; however, there is also evidence, according to Mayhew, Elliot, and Dowds (1989), Wunsch (2006) and Ferguson and Mindel (2007) which suggests that participation in, neighborhood watch programs, for example, tends to make people more sensitive to risks to their community, resulting in them being more fearful (As cited in, Cordner and Melekian, 2010).
Even after demonstrating such mixed results, community policing, over the past two decades, has been a major investment on the part of the police and the community.

According to Weisburd and Eck (2004) available research suggests that when police partner with the public, levels of citizen fear will decline and thee has been strong support for the ability of community policing tactics to indeed reduce fear of crime among the citizenry. Given that such strategies clearly remain to be in use today and the inconclusiveness of the research, it is important to determine whether or not certain tactics of community policing are indeed effective at reducing the fear of crime. Therefore, this literature review aims to demonstrates the need to shift the direction of future community policing policy, with a focus on applying the techniques which have been deemed to be the most effective in reducing fear of crime among the citizens and avoid the strategies in which have resulted in

failure.