Dangerous Situations: Social Context and Fear of Victimization

As people navigate their social and physical environment, what cues or signs lead them to believe that they are in danger of becoming victims of crime? Using Goffman's essay onf "Nonnal Appearances" as a backdrop, we argue that there are three central cues that cevoke fear of victimization. The effects of these cues are tested using data from a factorial survey (Rossi & Nock 1982) coniducted in Dallas. We then consider an additional social cuie, anid the coniditionis under which cues do and do not operate. One of the kinds of social relations in which humans find themselves occurs when one person stands in fear of another. This relation, a form of dominance, may exist in small, intimate groups, as when a wife fears her abusive husband, or in large, secondary groups, as when employees fear their employer. The notion of fear figures heavily in modem sociological thought, particularly in the area of social control. Fear of sanctions, for example, lies at the heart of the deterrence doctrine (Gibbs 1975). And fear, through its intimate link with coercion, is also central to modem conceptions of both the state and law, as witness Weber's definitions of each (Gerth & Mills 1946). So while fear may be understood as merely an affective state, it is one that structures and maintains social relations on both a large and small scale. One form of fear that is routinely experienced by a substantial portion of Americans is fear of criminal victimization. For example, 40% of respondents to the General Social Survey in 1987 responded affirmatively to the question "Is there any area right around here that is, within a mile where you would be afraid to walk alone at night?" (NORC 1987). In the National Crime Survey cities sample, 46% of respondents reported that they had altered their lifestyle in some way due to fear (Hindelang, Gottfredson & Garofalo 1978). And Warr (1985) has recently reported evidence that fear of rape is a central fear among the large majority of young urban women. Fear of criminal victimization has been the subject of continuous study by criminologists for over two decades. As investigators have examined aspects of fear, the literature has coalesced around certain key questions. The most frequently addressed is simply "Who is afraid?" Investigators in this area have largely concentrated on describing and explaining large observed differences in fear between males and females, and young and old (e.g., Stafford & Galle 1984; Warr 1984; Alston 1986). Others have examined the degree to which different crimes are feared (e.g., Warr & Stafford 1983), the effects of media news coverage or other *This research was supported by a grant from the University Research Institute of the University of Texas at Austin. I thank my colleagues David Snow, Sheldon Ekland-Olson, Dale McLemore, Susan Marshall, and Norval Glenn for their comments on this paper, and Judy Warr and Lisa Marquis for their research assistance. Direct correspondence to the author at the Department of Sociology, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712. i The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces, March 1990, 68(3):891-907 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.104 on Sun, 19 Jun 2016 06:06:38 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 892 / Social Forces 68:3, March 1990 media content on fear (e.g., Heath 1984), or the consequences of fear (e.g., Hindelang et al. 1978). None of the foregoing issues is unimportant; indeed, they are critical. But as research on fear of victimization has become increasingly specialized, the area threatens to pass by some of the most sociologically significant questions. One of the questions that would seem to be of interest to urban sociologists, human ecologists, and sylmibolic interactionists is this: What aspects of their immediate social and physical environment lead individuals to believe that they are in danger of becoming victims of crime? Put another way, how are risk judgments formulated when it comes to crime? The question gives rise to a host of related questions, ranging from the minute to the general. For example, as pedestrians walk down an urban street, how fear-provoking is the sight of, say, graffiti? Or boarded windows, trash, winos, or liquor stores? More broadly, are certain kinds of people viewed as indicia to danger? And, in addition to dangerous people, how do areas come to be perceived as dangerous places, or certain hours as dangerous times? The nunmber of cues that signal danger to individuals is, of course, potentially enormous. We will argue, however, that there are three preeminent cues that individuals attend to and rely upon, wittingly or not, as cues to danger. Two of these cues are not themselves social cuies, but they operate through what they imply about impending social interaction. The third cue is a social cue in the most literal sense. After developing and testing these arguments, we will turn attention to the conditions under which cues do and do not operate, and to an additional issue pertaining to social cues.