Fear of Crime Victimization and its Impact on Psychological Well-Being

Abstract:

The purpose of this research was to find out the association between fear of crime victimization and how it effects psychological wellbeing of adults residing in Lahore. The objective of this research was to determine that does the fear of crime victimization effects the psychological wellbeing of adults in Lahore who have always been victims to any of the many incidents happening around time. This research has been conducted to know to what extent the psychological well-being of people is being disturbed because of crime. The research was carried out at the University of the punjab from various of its departments. A sample size of 200 respondents was taken into account and it varied from workers, students and faculty members. We used random sampling to gather data from our respondents. We developed a questionnaire based on 38 questions. After the development of the questionnaire we randomly asked people to fill up the questionnaire upon their consent. The data collected was checked and edited for clarity, legibility, relevance and adequacy. For this purpose, SPSS 21 was used to analyze data in the form of Frequencies, Percentage and Graphs. With the help of our findings it was concluded that there is high association of fear of crime victimization and psychological wellbeing. The results of the findings were 0.02 which shows that the association between psychological wellbeing and fear of crime victimization is high.

Keywords:- Fear of Crime Victimization, Psychological wellbeing, Social fabric, Sexual Abuse, Terrorism.

Background

Crime is a phenomenon that is always considered to be negative and harmful for the society. Consequently, it is important to consider how society portrays crime and the risk of victimization among them. There is considerable academic research regarding perceived risk and fear of crime in the general population (e.g. Farrall, S., Jackson, J., & Gray, E. (2006); Ferraro, 1995, 1996; Rountree, 1998; Reid & Konrad, 2004; Warr, 1984). Being a victim of the crime can impact the overall performance of an individual and can restrict him to play several roles as parents, employ, owner, partner and social functioning (Rochelle F. Hanson, 2010).

Fear of crime:

This fear can be produced by any of the incidents happen to the self, its relatives or to the community. Actual fear of crime is triggered by some cue, and it is unlikely that a respondent is experiencing actual fear during a survey interview. The outcome of any criminal incident can surely put that person in trauma. Primary injuries can be categorized into three groups i-e physical, economic or emotional. Similarly, the secondary injuries tend to be more psychological as the individual do not get the required support from the friends and family.Not only this, but secondary injuries can also be caused by the friends, family media, judges, mental health professionals, etc. (Henrry, 2008)

Importance of Psychological wellbeing

Research have paid more attention to the better quality of life and promotes the importance of psychological well-being. (Voyer P, 2001). However, feeling of distress is not considered to be nonspecific of a psychologicalwell-being because it often considered as stimuli to seek attention or care. The well-being of society, is as important as the wellbeing of the individual.

Crime and its association with psychological well-being

Our sense of safety is horrified; therefore, we feel unsafe, insecure, vulnerable, helpless and powerless and may feel anger and outrage. Children will have similar reactions as adults but they may also have other extreme reactions such as bedwetting (in toilet-trained individuals); they may stop talking. Older children may have thoughts of revenge or may feel guilt. Therefore the fear of crime and crime itself has an association with psychological well-being.

Objectives:

The objectives of this research are as follow:

 To know the major factors creating fear of victimization among adults.

 To measure the level of fear

 To measure the degree of psychological wellbeing and level of concern among adults

 Problem Statement

Many effects could be caused by the fear of being victimized; one could have trouble with focus or memory, reduced performance at school or work and feeling like you have lost control. All such problems could lead to marginalizing individuals from society. Crime is not only affecting the community, but it is also restricting people to move freely and enjoy their lives thus causing adverse effects on the psychological well-being of individuals. No one wants to go for outing with friends and family if they have any threat to their lives and this, in the long run, may lead to disintegration. The fear of crime victimization is becoming a daily life problem and causing hindrance in our daily work routine, measures not taken now would result in multiple problems. If we ignore this issue, government policies will need to increase to tackle the cascading problems shortly which would cause the government to rethink over their financial assets.

Review of Literature

A study conducted in Kentucky by David May, Patricia Harden, and Lena Kline about the fear of crime victimization and their perceived risk of criminal victimization. They used mail survey method to collect the required information from the residents of Kentucky. They defined real crime victimization as a situation when a person suffers from criminal activity or a person fears to be the victim.Whereas perceived offense is a situation when a person dream of being a victim, this could be of several reasons like from watching violent movies or hearing a crime story from the neighbors or friends. The researchconcluded that they both, in the long run, affect the psychological well-being of an individual (David May, 2008). The psychological ability of people varies in nature as people tend to be aggressive, sensitive or any other and that causes how they react to different situations. A person of aggressive nature could maybe try to help out others being victimized, whereas a person of sensitive nature could think of escaping or might even faint. Taylor and Francis examine the vulnerability and the perception of risk in fear of the crime. Prior studies conducted in the field have in general treated gender and age as two variables prone to vulnerability but the current study develops a case for more academic approach, and in the study at hand the research examines whether higher levels of fear trigger the vulnerability. James Garofalo argues that In a paper eight year ago Furstenberg presented his observations that provide evidence to understand the fear of crime. His observation is no less accurate today than it was eight years ago, despite the fact that our knowledge about the causes and consequences of the fear of crime has increased steadily during the period. Every advance that is made-whether by refining concepts, by specifying and testing relationships, by obtaining more comprehensive data, or by some other means seems to generate more questions than it answers. But that should be expected; part of the nature of complex social phenomena is that their complexity becomes more apparent as they are examined more carefully. (Garofelo, 1981). He presents a general model and positions it in a social space that reveals the information about crime and images of crime; it is through this that Garofalo assesses the parameters of actual and anticipated fear, its costs and options, its responses to the fear of crime and its feedback effects of responses. With the help of the previous studies and with the reference of the researches done, we identified the key indicators of fear of crime victimization as well as psychological well-being to make this phenomenon clearer. Some of the key indicators of fear of crime victimization and psychological wellbeing are explained below: