Skip Navigation


Policing Advance Access originally published online on June 10, 2008
Policing 2008 2(2):167-174; doi:10.1093/police/pan022
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
2/2/167    most recent
pan022v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sidebottom, A.
Right arrow Articles by Tilley, N.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Authors 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CSF Associates. Publius, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Evolutionary Psychology and Fear of Crime

Aiden Sidebottom* and Nick Tilley**

* Aiden Sidebottom, Research Assistant, Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, University College London, London, UK. E-mail: a.sidebottom{at}ucl.ac.uk
** Professor Nick Tilley, Graduate School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, UK

Presently, public levels of fear of crime are generally considered to be excessive and undesirable. Their reduction is a recurrent policy target. It is recurrent because of the long-standing difficulties experienced in lowering levels of fear to match falling crime rates. The purpose of this brief paper is to describe how and why evolutionary theory may contribute to our understanding of the fear of crime, and help explain why it has been found so difficult to reduce it. The mismatch between fear and real risk, shown for instance in young men's consistent underestimation of risk, is examined. Implications of this for a policy aiming at ‘realism’ in relation to fear and risk are also discussed. In this vein, evolutionary theory, we believe, has the potential to explain both disproportionately high and disproportionately low levels of fear of crime. Moreover, it indicates why some methods of attempting to achieve fear-reduction policy aims have few prospects of success.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.