Relationship Between Ethnicity and Fear of Crime

Question: Discuss about the Relationship Between Ethnicity and Fear of Crime. Answer: Introduction The ethnic composition within England and Wales has changed enormously over the past 20 years with there being and increase in ethnic diversity. London was discovered to be the most ethnically diverse area while Wales was the least diverse (Office for National Statistics, 2012). This change is has been viewed as advantageous as it promotes cross-cultures and an acceptance to different forms of cultures which would consecutively result in a multicultural society that could benefit from one another (Stillwell, 2010). However, not everyone feels the same way in this shift in ethnic composition in the country. Some have argued that this has allowed for racial segregation to take place, where communities are broken down based on their ethnical origin and creating distinct boundaries where greater amounts of ethnic minorities occupy certain areas of the city or country. Research carried out has found there to be no impact when the fear of crime is being compared over ethnic composition of place, while relevant factors such as gender, age, income and experience as a victim are being controlled. However, one of the main findings of the research was that when there is a majority of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups living in a particular area, individuals from White ethnic groups were found to have a greater fear in being a victim of crime. Previous research carried out has also reported that there are different factors which affect an individuals fear towards being a victim of crime. For example, the locality of where the individual resides could be a contributing factor towards the fear of being a victim of crime. According to Belyea Zingraff (1988) those who lived within an urban environment had a higher fear of being victims of crime as compared to those who resided within the rural areas. To investigate the relationship between fear of crime and ethnicity, this research explored the following two questions: Are there significant differences between White ethnic individuals and individuals belonging to Black and minority ethnic groups regarding their fear of crime? Apart from ethnicity, does locality, age or previous experiences of crime play as a contributing factor to an individuals fear of crime? Methodology Generally, ethnicity and racism are some of the most frequent characteristics of a person that will be feature in the legal and justice systems. However, the minority groups in any region will feel so insecure and therefore will have more fear for crime than the group that entails the majority. This is simply because they will feel that they have very few people to support them or to make them feel like they belong (Butler, 2011). Also, being a person of color in a place where there are more white people makes one feel lonely and odd one out and therefore insecurity which leads to increased fear for crime. When we considered age as a factor that affects fear for crime, it shows that the women and the younger people in the BME face more fear than those of the majority ethnicity. To add to that, even the elderly women and men have a high probability of feeling less secure when they are alone or when surrounded by a majority of people from a different ethnic group. Furthermore, when we relate the residential area of a person and the level of fear they have for crime, the data showed that the people who lived in the urban areas are more likely going to feel more fear than those living in the rural areas. The reason is because in the urban areas, there are more crowded people whereby some of them may be idle, people dont know each other at all and therefore the chances of crime happening are high while in the rural areas most people know each other, are used to staying with each other and therefore no high chances of hurting the other (Stillwell, 2010). Looking at the income level of a person, those people that earn more than others or those that have more money than other are likely to experience more fear of crime. This is because, since they have a lot of money they want to protect it from either being stolen or getting lost. Also they are in more danger of being attacked by thieves than those without money. For this reason, most of them usually have bodyguards or carry weapons with them for protection. Otherwise, they may prefer storing their cash in the banks or investing it in projects and business deals but that does not change the fact that they are rich and can be attacked at any time. On the other hand, the poor people who do not high incomes face less fear because they know and are sure that no one will attack them to get money. However, in case they are attacked then the attackers may have wasted their energy and time because they may not get money on them. This therefore is a clear indication that the more money one has the more the fear for crime they will have and vice versa. Studies have also shown that the difference in gender is a main factor that affects the level of fear for crime in general. When it comes to gender, the females are likely to experience more of crime than the males (Neuman, 2010). This is simply because in many past reports on crime cases, the females have always been subjects of violation and mistreatment especially by the males. E.g. the household cases, the women are frequent the victims for such cases and therefore leading to increase in fear for crime even outside their homesteads. Additionally, when it comes to the fact that a woman is black, poor and young there are high chances of them being victims of crimes and therefore causes them to have more fear. However, it is argued that the reasons why most people face fear when it comes to crime is because of their social status and their view on the social class of those surrounding them. In other words, fear for crime is basically caused by the social differences between people. When people become more sensitive to their social class differences they are likely going to experience the fear of insecurity and loneliness (Jansson, 2016). Therefore it is advisable that people to not concentrate so much on their social status and let themselves be in order to reduce the risks and fear for crimes Sources of Research Data For the collection of data, I used the secondary sources for data collection which means that I would have the same results as those of the researcher before me. The data that was used is the data found in the official documentation of the country. This is simply because this data is likely to contain more details on the research and the fact that it is updated year after year make it a good source of idea and knowledge on the topic. In addition to that, this official data was used also because of the fact that it gives deeper and understandable details on the factors that may affect crime rate like employment, unemployment, level of incomes to name just but a few factors. Studies have shown that, these factors may cause either a decrease or an increase in the crime rates either in relation to ethnicity or residential areas. The people who are unemployed will opt to involve themselves in crimes so that they can get money (Callanan et al, 2015). This means they are likely going to att ack the employed, those with high income levels and living in good residential areas. However, this kind of data should not be relied upon so much simply because it was made by people with certain reasons of their own. In most cases, these information is usually meant for political reasons and therefore will seem to favor the team doing the research rather than give the true facts about the research (Rosenstiel et al, 2011). This means that there is always a likely wood of the researchers assuming some information and doing guess work to foster their agendas.in addition to that, in most cases these kind of data is never valid. This is because it is likely going to represent false information rather than the true status of the situation. The reason for the data not being valid is because of the many channels that are involved in the rectification of a crime which involves the police reports, investigations and lastly the court or justice systems (Kohm et al, 2012). However, not many crime that are reported that pass through all the process and therefore the research te am may need to justify their research by tampering with the results to suite their agendas. Data Collection Methods The results for this research are completely based on the data provided by the National Statistics in the year 2013. The results showed a detailed information on the analysis of the Crime Survey for both England and Wales (CSEW) between the years 2012 and 2013. Studies have shown that the CSEW collected data by conducting a face to face interview in their own homes with the 4600 households as the respondents. By doing this, they faced some challenges especially because they used individual variables. This meant that they were to place or group every respondent either according to gender, age, culture and most importantly ethnicity. This is simply because the research that they were conducting was in relation to the ethnicity group of a person and their fear of crime. In other words, how the ethnic group of a person may affect their fear for crime. For this reason, the CSEW decide to group the ethnic groups of the respondents into two main groups according to the population that was available for study. The groups included the following: White and Black Minority Ethnic Group (BME). However the black category of ethnic group was considered to be a color of mixture i.e. black and any other color e.g. Black or Black British, Asian or Asian British and Chinese or other. In this research, the CSEW used other different variables that they thought would have an effect on the respondents for fear of crime. Therefore, apart from ethnicity of the respondent, age, residential area and crime experience with the last one year. These variable are the ones that helped CSEW to collect data on the relationship between ethnicity group and fear for crime. However, the research team faced some challenges during the collection of the data like some respondents gave false information while others didnt want to be questioned, the process was costly. To get the probability rates for every variable, the SPSS Model was used and the Chi-square test was done. However, the data was presented in tables clearly and can be easily understood. I used the frequency tables to describe the data. The cross-tabulation represents the data form two variable but put together in table form. Findings/Results From the analysis of CSEW, 7.7% of the respondents were very much worried in their fear for crime while 24% were fairly worried. Additionally, 54% claimed that they were not very worried about experiencing crime and 16% showed that they were not at all worried about experiencing crimes. When it came to ethnicity, the analysis showed that 88% of the respondents were white, 7% Asian or Asian British, 3% represented those who were Black or Black British while the rest of the percentage, 2% represented the Chinese and other. The analysis also showed that there is a significant relationship between ethnicity and fear for crime in England and Wales in general. To be precise, the results showed that 55% of the Black Minority Ethnicity faces or feels more fear for crime than the whites who showed only 28.5%. When we consider the relationship between ethnicity and fear for crime, there are certain differences and especially when it comes to residential areas. The analysis showed that 97% of the BME groups live in the urban areas compared to the 3% of whites. However, 78.5% of whites live in the rural areas while 21.5% of the BME groups live there. Findings for residential area and fear for crime, 34% of those living in urban areas were worried compared to 23% of those living in rural areas. Comparing ethnicity and residential areas, 56% represented BMEs who were worried and lived in urban areas while 30% represented the whites. 44 % of those living in rural areas and had great fear for crime were BMEs while 23% were whites. When the analysis of population in relation to age was done, itshowed that 71% of the old or 35+ years are white and 53% were BMEs. In relation to age and fear for crime 33% was for the young (16-35years) and 31% was for the old. Considering ethnicity and fear for crime the BMEs were represented by 52.5% while the whiles were represented by 29%. Comparing the ethnicity verses age in relation to fear for crime, the BMEs had 58% representation and the whites had 28% representation. Looking at the relationship between the experience for crime and ethnicity in relation to fear for crime 79% of whites and 78% of BMEs were represented. The analysis shows that 42% of those experienced crime had more fear for crime than 30% of those who had not experienced. 52% of BMEs who had not experienced crime were more worried of experiencing crime than 26% of whites. Conclusion The report has showed the relationships between ethnicity and fear for crime very clearly. Also it has shown the relationship between other factors and the fear for crime. It is therefore evident that all these factors have a great effect on people and their fear for crime in their own ways. References Belyea, M., J. Zingraff, M., T. (1988). Fear of Crime and Residential Location. Rural Sociology. 53(4), pp.473-486. Bryman, A. 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