Little brother: could and should wearable computing technologies be applied to reducing older people?s fear of crime?

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 402-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Blythe ◽  
Peter C. Wright ◽  
Andrew F. Monk
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Fear Of Crime ◽  
Wearable Computing ◽  
Computing Technologies

Psychological factors of fear of crime: an empirical study of older people in Lucknow, India

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Avanish Bhai Patel
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Psychological Factors ◽  
Fear Of Crime ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The incidents of elder victimisation and cases of victimisation, in general, are increasing fast in the society. These incidents have had negative impact on the sense of well-being and way of life of the older people. Therefore, fear of crime is being considered as a most concerning psycho-social problem amongst the older people in contemporary time. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of crime rate on the well-being of the older people and examine the linkage between psychological factors and fear of crime amongst the older people. Design/methodology/approach The present study is based on the mixed method approach and an exploratory research designed applied to conduct the study. The field survey has been done from October 2012 to January 2013 on a sample of 220 older people of rural and urban areas of Lucknow in the state of Uttar Pradesh through purposive sampling. For the study, researcher has interviewed 137 male older people and 83 female older people through interview schedules and case studies. The data have been analysed through descriptive and narrative analysis. Findings The study finds that those older people have direct or indirect experience of victimisation, they have anxiety and feel insecurity that someone can victimise them. The study also finds that the happiness of older people is more affected due to anxiety and phobia and have higher level of feeling of fear of crime in their neighbourhood and home. The study also finds whenever anti-social elements are active in the neighbourhood and they commit crimes, fear of crime and anxiety grasp the older people to a large extent causing a fracture in their psychological well-being. Originality/value This work is the original work of researcher. This paper is related to the researcher’s PhD dissertation work. This paper talks about how the psychological well-being of older people affects due to nature of crime in neighbourhood, phobia of crime and anxiety due to criminal activities.

Fear of Crime Among the Elderly: Foresight, Not fright

1998 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 277-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Werner Greve
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Fear Of Crime ◽  
Older Persons ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Physical Vulnerability ◽  
Objective Risk ◽  
Victims Of Crime ◽  
The One

The seemingly paradoxical result that despite their much lower objective risk of criminal victimization older persons show significantly higher fear of crime than younger ones has become a commonplace within criminology in the last two decades. It is argued that this so-called ‘victimization-fear-paradox’ can be resolved by theoretically and empirically differentiating cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of fear. Additionally, gerontological concepts partially explain the linkage between objective risk of victimization and fear on the one hand and age and fear on the other. In particular, arguments from a gerontopsychological perspective reveal that older people are by no means irrational but, on the contrary, behave in an adequately cautious way because they know about their higher physical vulnerability. It is due to their carefulness that older people are in fact less often victims of crime than younger ones. Results from a nationwide representative victim-survey in Germany are presented in order to support and illustrate these arguments. It is concluded that a closer look at the concept of ‘fear of crime’, as well as at the victimological data, explains a finding which seems to be unexpected from the ‘paradox's’ point of view: fear of crime is not a major problem of the elderly's daily life.

scholarly journals Old age and fear of crime: cross-national evidence for a decreased impact of neighbourhood disadvantage in older age

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Göran Köber ◽  
Dietrich Oberwittler ◽  
Rebecca Wickes
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Fear Of Crime ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Environment Interaction ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Adult Lifespan ◽  
Younger Age ◽  
Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods ◽  
Level Analysis

Abstract Fear of crime among older people has been a frequent topic in ageing research, criminology and urban studies. The ‘environmental docility hypothesis’ assumes that older people are more vulnerable to adverse neighbourhood conditions than younger age groups. Yet, few studies have tested this influential hypothesis using samples of respondents covering the complete adult lifespan. Looking at fear of crime, we investigated the person–environment interaction of age and neighbourhood disadvantage, using two independent surveys comprising 12,620 respondents aged 25–90 years residing in 435 neighbourhoods in four cities in Germany and Australia. We used multi-level analysis and cross-level interactions to model age-differential effects of neighbourhood disadvantage on fear. Contrary to the hypothesis, we found a weakening of neighbourhood effects on fear with age. The strong effect of neighbourhood disadvantage on fear of crime dropped by around half from the youngest (25 years) to the oldest age (90 years) in both countries. Younger people were almost as fearful as older people in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods, but older people were considerably more fearful than younger ages in better-off neighbourhoods. We found limited empirical support for the assumption that this diminished association between neighbourhood disadvantage and fear can be explained by the stronger neighbourhood attachment of older people. The limitations of the analysis and potential future directions of research are discussed.

Fear of crime and older people in low- and middle-income countries

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 1083-1108 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER LLOYD-SHERLOCK ◽  
SUTAPA AGRAWAL ◽  
NADIA MINICUCI
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Older People ◽  
Fear Of Crime ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Strong Association ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
World Health ◽  
Adult Health ◽  
Reported Crime

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses data from the World Health Organization's Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health (SAGE) on the prevalence of reported fear of crime at home and on the street among older people in China, Ghana, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa. SAGE provides nationally representative data for 35,125 people aged 50 and over. These reveal large national variations in reported crime fear: for example, 65 per cent of older South Africans felt unsafe on the street, compared to only 9 per cent of older Ghanaians. The paper examines factors potentially associated with crime fear, including age, socio-economic status and frailty, and relates these to different theoretical models of crime fear. Female sex and frailty are associated with higher rates of crime fear across the study countries. Other associations are less consistent, e.g. urban residence is associated with higher levels of fear in some countries and lower levels in others. The paper considers the potential effects of crime fear on mobility beyond the home, health status and quality of life. A strong association is found for mobility, but effects on health and quality of life are harder to interpret as the direction of causality can be two-way. Overall, the paper demonstrates the potential impact of crime fear on older people's wellbeing and highlights a need for further, more contextualised research.

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