The 'fear of crime' and governance : a genealogy of the concept of 'fear of crime' and its imagined subjects

Abstract

This thesis is a critical approach to the concept of fear of crime. It is not necessarily a call for an end to the study of fear of crime. From a genealogical perspective, the thesis first traces the proliferation of academic, governmental and popular interests in the fear of crime in three Western democracies; and secondly explains how this interest has affected both the subjects of inquiry and the very modes of inquiry themselves. It investigates historically the emergence of fear of crime as a set of discourses in the human sciences and in government and explores the ways in which these various institutions have imagined the subjects of their inquiries. It also discusses the ways in which fear of crime has become a discourse within popular culture and the mass media, and explores why gender is a potent signifier in fear of crime research.

Date of Award	2001
Original language	English