Victims of Crime - Fear Of Becoming A Victim

The fear of becoming a victim is often much greater than the likelihood of being one. Fear of crime has permeated our society so completely that it plays a daily role in our lives. In Perceptions of Neighborhood Crime, 1995 (Carol J. DeFrances and Steven K. Smith, Washington, D.C., 1998), the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported that about 7.3 percent of U.S. households believed that crime was a major problem in their neighborhoods.

Households in central cities (14.5 percent) were twice as likely as other households to feel that crime was a serious problem. In 1995, 19.6 percent of black central-city households identified crime as a neighborhood problem, compared to 13 percent of white central-city households.

In 2000, despite a steadily declining crime trend, 34 percent of respondents to a Gallup Poll felt that there was more crime in their area than the year before. Of those, a third lived in urban areas, 31 percent in suburban areas, and 41 percent resided in rural areas. About 34 percent of white respondents felt that crime was worse than the year before, compared to 31 percent of black respondents. Thirty-six percent of females and 32 percent of males who responded felt that there was more crime in their area than in the previous year.