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Measurement of the Extent of Youth Crime in Scotland

6 Measuring fear of youth crime

Introduction

6.1 The research has not identified any studies that shed light on fear of crime committed specifically by young people in Scotland. Instead, surveys tend to ask general questions relating to the fear of all crime, of which the fear of youth crime will form only one element. We begin by placing the UK and Scotland's position in a broader international context, before presenting the main survey evidence on the fear of crime. The sources that we have focused on are the Scottish Crime Survey and the Scottish Household Survey.

Difficulties in estimation

6.2 It could be argued that much of the fear of crime is fear of youth crime, both in the sense that young people generally form a useful depository for anxieties about public order and that, as we have seen, a significant proportion of all crime is actually committed by young people. The definition of youth will however vary depending on who is being asked. If survey respondents are asked how worried they are about walking alone in their area after dark or about having their home broken into, their images of likely offenders are almost certainly of young men. Survey questions are not, however, generally framed in such a way that it would be possible to separate out fear of youth crime from fear of adult crime in any precise way.

6.3 The only survey questions in widespread use that refer specifically to young people tend to be ones that address perceptions of 'incivilities' and anti-social behaviour.

Key indicators

6.4 A key indicators approach, based on survey data, is the best way forward in this area. There is, clearly, no real and measurable level of fear of crime, only competing constructions of crime-related public anxieties. Instead, we include data, available at local, national and international levels on matters such as:

• peoples' perceptions of their own safety;
• their level of worry about specific crime types;
• their perceived crime risk; and
• their perceptions of how common specific youth-related problems are in respondents' areas.

6.5 First of all, however, we offer some comments about the actual impact of fear of youth crime.

The impact of fear of youth crime

6.6 This discussion cannot really be separated from that of the impact of anti-social behaviour by young people more generally. The impacts of fear of crime, too, are diverse and difficult to quantify, and are felt at the level of both individuals and communities. The impact on individuals can range from the minor (taking sensible precautions to avoid victimisation) to the severe (debilitating and pervasive anxiety that constricts and shapes everyday activities).

6.7 At the level of communities, fear of crime itself can make crime itself more likely, since it has the effect of keeping people off the streets. If public spaces are abandoned because they are seen as dangerous, they actually become more dangerous, since the level of surveillance is reduced and both individual safety and the security of property are jeopardised as a result.

6.8 The fear of crime also undermines the ability of communities to respond to and deal effectively with difficult situations, since it erodes social trust and makes it more likely that residents will resort to formal criminal justice when problems occur. In other words, it is better for residents of particular communities to feel that they can talk to each other about problems relating to young people, or talk to those young people themselves. If they feel they have no choice but to involve the police, because of anxiety about their own safety, the divisions and suspicions that exist will be reinforced.

Benchmarking the UK's position

6.9 A recent Eurobarometer report (April 2003) ³⁵ placed the UK among the top 3 member states where feelings of insecurity after dark are greatest. When asked, "how safe do you feel walking alone after dark in the area where you live?", 19% of respondents in the UK said that they felt very unsafe. Only respondents in Greece and Italy reported greater feelings of insecurity. Respondents in the most northerly member states were most likely to report the greatest feelings of security (60% of respondents in Denmark reported that they felt very safe when walking alone in their area after dark.

6.10 Respondents were also asked to estimate the likelihood that they might fall victim to different types of crime in the next 12 months. Examples of the crime to which they might fall victim ranged from theft to burglary and robbery. Across the EU, respondents were most likely to say that they feared becoming the victims of theft (29%), followed by burglary or break-in at home (26%). The fear of crime involving personal attacks such as assault or mugging was slightly lower. Greek respondents were the most apprehensive about becoming the victims of crime in every category, closely followed by those in France. The UK was the fifth out of the 15 countries where fear of crime was greatest.

6.11 With regard to the effect of policing, at least half of all respondents in every country agreed that better policing would help to prevent crime. The greatest dissatisfaction with the work of the police is displayed in the UK, Netherlands, Sweden and Italy where less than half of all respondents agreed that the police are doing a good job.

6.12 Finally, while there was no information on how significant crime committed specifically by young people was in people's fears, they were asked about the most effective way of dealing with crime by young people. Respondents were more likely to believe that young people can be deterred from committing crime more by means of actively targeting them as the subject of crime prevention programmes (85%) than by means of tougher sentencing policy (62%). However respondents in Portugal, Ireland and the UK differed from this general view, and considered that tougher sentencing was almost as useful a deterrent as crime prevention programmes.

Fear of Crime in England and Wales

6.13 For England and Wales , the best source of information on fear of crime comes from the British Crime Survey (BCS) that provides, among other things, information about levels of crime and public attitudes to crime and other Home Office issues. The BCS moved to an annual cycle from 2001/02, with 40,000 interviews of people aged 16 or over now taking place per year in England and Wales.

6.14 In the 2002/03 survey, approximately one in five (21.7%) interviewees perceived there to be high levels of disorder. A similar proportion (20.6%) were very worried about violent crime, 16.6% were very worried about car crime and 14.7% were very worried about burglary (Table 6.1).

6.15 Female respondents were more likely than males to say that crime is very worrying. Worries about crime were greatest in both striving and aspiring areas and were perceptibly lower in thriving and expanding neighbourhoods.

6.16 Table 6.5 presents similar data for Scotland as a whole (data are not gathered according to the ACORN classification). Although, the questions asked in the Scottish survey are not entirely the same, this source indicates that fear of housebreaking and car theft (31% and 27% of adults respectively) is a greater concern in Scotland than it is in England where proportionately fewer adults are reported to be very worried about equivalent crimes (15% and 17%). Worry about violent crime is similarly reported as a concern in both the British and the Scottish crime surveys.

6.17 Therefore while the UK is high on the list of EU countries where fear of crime is strong, the population in Scotland appear to be more fearful than the UK average about becoming victim to certain types of crime.

Fear of Crime in Scotland

Scottish Crime Survey

6.18 The Scottish equivalent of the British Crime Survey offers similar insights for the country as a whole. The 2000 Scottish Crime Survey SCS) is the most recent available ³⁶ and reflects the opinions of 5,045 adults aged 16+ living in private homes across the country.

6.19 To generate a wider base of information, two versions of the main questionnaire were issued during the SCS (Main A and Main B). The core questions were the same on both forms," Main A" then contained a section on the criminal justice system while "Main B" was concerned with attitudes towards public safety and experience (victimisation) of different types of crime. These latter "fear of crime" questions were only asked of half of the sample (c. 2,500 people) and the significance of the results is lower than that for the whole sample.

6.20 In order to gauge the extent to which people view crime as a serious problem in general, respondents were asked to rank a range of social problems in Scotland ("extremely serious", "quite serious", "not very serious", "not a problem". Crime ranked as the second highest concern, after drug abuse, on a scale of eight social concerns, with 28% of respondents considering crime to be a "serious problem". This was a significantly smaller proportion than the 44% who felt this to be the case in the 1996 survey, indicating that people's perceptions of crime appear to be falling in line with the drop in crime reported to the SCS over the same period.

6.21 Respondents who had lived in their locality for over two years were asked whether they thought the level of crime in their area had changed over this time. The majority (48%) felt that crime rates had not changed, 17% felt that there was "a lot more" crime, 24% felt that there was "a little more" crime, and only 7% felt that there was "a little less" or "a lot less crime" than two years beforehand.

6.22 Further analysis of this question shows that perceptions on the level of crime varies between the gender of respondent, their social grouping, age, house type and settlement size (see Table A.1). In general, females and older people perceived there to be more crime in the local area than two years beforehand. A higher perceived level of crime was also reported by residents in council/housing association properties, those in lower income groups (C2, D and E), those in high rise or tenement accommodation and those in towns (with a population ranging from 1,000 to 999,999).

6.23 Table A.2 in the appendix shows people's perceptions of how common certain types of crime are in their local areas. Housebreaking is the most commonly perceived problem. The problem is particularly a concern in lower income households/ areas where the reported levels of muggings and physical attack are also higher than the Scottish average.

Scottish Household Survey (SHS)

6.24 The SHS also asks questions relating to feelings of personal safety. Due to its much larger scale, the results can be taken to be more statistically representative of the feelings of the population as a whole.

6.25 The 2002 survey asked a general perception question on the extent to which the interviewees' quality of life is affected by fear of crime. The results by age and sex are summarised in Table 6.2

6.26 As reported in other surveys, females are more likely to experience stronger feelings of anxiety about crime than males. It is also more commonly experienced by young people, particularly those aged under 24, rather than those aged over 45.

6.27 However, the victimisation statistics suggest that this fear is disproportionate to the degree of risk faced. That is, those most at risk of experiencing violent crime are males in the 16 to 24 age group, whereas those most fearful are females of all ages. The suggestion is that the worry experienced by females especially is not proportionate to the level of risk, whereas for males the opposite is the case. However, it can be seen as rationale for women to worry more than men about certain types of crime not because the risks are higher, but, particularly where sexual violence is involved, the consequences are seen as more serious.

6.28 This issue is also addressed by the Scottish Crime Survey (Table A.3 in the Appendix), which confirms these findings.

6.29 The survey also addresses perceptions on fear of crime associated with both travelling on public transport in the evenings and feelings of safety when walking alone after dark and being at home alone in the evenings. The responses are summarised in Table 6.4 for key categories of respondent (male, female, young people (16 - 24) and all respondents) ³⁷.

6.30 The key points of the Survey are:

• non-bus and train users are more concerned about their safety from crime when using these services than those who use the services regularly, although a large proportion of respondents did not have a view on safety from crime on public transport;
• generally people feel least anxious about crime when in their own homes after dark, but a small minority, mainly women, do not feel safe when alone at home;
• people feel similarly anxious about safety from crime when walking alone in their own areas after dark and when using public transport; and
• women and young people tend to be more fearful of crime in any situation than male interviewees.

6.31 The SHS also asks respondents about their worries of experiencing different types of crime (Table 6.5). Housebreaking and having a car stolen are the most common concerns. Again, women and young people tend to be more fearful then men about becoming victim of all types of crime.

Glasgow Youth Survey

6.32 The Glasgow Youth Survey, conducted in 2003, made a number of observations of the fear of crime among young people in the Glasgow area.

• Only 17% of respondents said they felt very safe in areas around where they live and almost half felt fairly safe. However, greater anxiety is reflected in the fact that a quarter said that they do not feel very safe and one in ten "not at all safe" in their local area.
• The most commonly mentioned situation in which young people feel unsafe is when they see gangs and drug users. More than half feel unsafe in rough areas and walking through dark areas.
• Three in five young people said that they felt either very or fairly worried about being attacked in the street or other public place. Very young people (11 year olds) and girls are most likely to feel worried about being attacked in the street, along with young people from black and ethnic backgrounds. In contrast, just one in six said that they actually have been attacked in the last year, with this being most common among boys aged 14 - 15.

Conclusions

6.33 The available surveys tell us a great deal about which types of crimes people worry about and in which locations. However other than one opinion question in the Household Survey (how common are young people hanging around in the street in this area), these sources relate to fear of crime in general rather than fear of crime committed by young people per se.

6.34 It is likely to be very difficult to quantify the impact of these fears, although it has to be acknowledged that patterns of expenditure may be influenced and there may be an impact on location decisions or employment choices, e.g. people stop using local shops where the threat of crime is perceived to be high, or people take taxis to avoid being alone on the streets or on public transport.

6.35 The first step in assessing cost would entail assessing the extent to which behaviour is altered as a consequence of such fears and then to assess the costs of these altered behaviour patterns. However, the difficulties of any such exercise are likely to be considerable, and it will not be possible to separate out the impact of the fear of youth crime from broader fears about crime unless heroic assumptions are used to do so.

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