This amplifies the original involvement of the group in crime. This magnification process, reflected in police arrest statistics, serves to act as a confirmation of police stereotypes of criminality, leading to further concentration of policing resources deployed against the group and further artificial magnification of its arrest rates. There is silent and not so silent fear of anyone different from ourselves. Fear of crime in this respect is fear of difference. We fear anyone's unpredictability.
Fear becomes a way of reacting to a perceived negative.
There is fear of people who look, talk and act differently from the majority. Jean-Paul Brodeur commented that fear of crime and feelings of insecurity get exploited in reaction to immigration in a neighbourhood. People feel their jobs are threatened and that housing prices will drop. Delinquency becomes the point where a feeling of vulnerability to many diverse aggressions is crystalized. As well, these fears of difference intersect with fears of victimization so that someone who is assaulted by a person from another racial group can stereotype a whole race and become afraid of them all.