Local crime as a natural hazard: Implications for understanding the relationship between disorder and fear of crime

Summary We have suggested the following: Local crimes and natural hazards share several objective similarities and similarities in how they are perceived. Although local crimes and natural hazards are clearly different in numerous respects, these points of analogy suggest that in several ways responses to local disorder may be similar to responses to hazards. If this is the case, processes used to explain how persons respond to disasters may help explain a recurrent puzzle in the responses to disorder literature: the loose linkages between local disorder levels and fear levels. Future research needs include developing a fuller understanding of how other contextual factors mediate or moderate the processes discussed here, how these processes are related to and may mediate behavioral responses to crime, and how these behaviors in turn influence perceptions. We have suggested here that anticrime behaviors may result in some disadaptation to the threat, thereby elevating fear, and have provided evidence to that effect. In addition it is important to ascertain how the points of analogy between crime as a natural hazard and crime as an environmental stressor may be melded to develop more insight than afforded by either perspective considered singly. The heuristic developed here suggests some additional considerations for policy makers involved in anticrime or fear reduction programs.