Understanding the relationship between risk and fear

Any message put out by a partnership will have an impact on fear.

We do recognise that some awareness of crime can be good because it encourages people to take positive steps to reduce their chances of victimisation by taking crime reduction measures and adopting common sense precautions. However, if a campaign to raise people’s awareness about crime prevention measures is not handled properly, it can raise people’s fears. There are some people who have such a heightened fear of crime that they become prisoners in their own home, avoid going out and develop fortress crime prevention methods, such as bars on windows. This can have a very debilitating effect on their quality of life, and can impact negatively on the rest of the community.

Once partnerships have managed to establish the facts about their local drivers of risk and fear, they will be able to turn their attention to finding the right message, the right audience to deliver to and the right medium in which to deliver it. You should note that the right message will be different depending on the type of audience you are delivering to. For advice on doing this you should look at Considering Fear of Crime: A Guide for CDRPs by Steve Park. This can be under the Learning Zone of the Crime Reduction website at http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/learningzone/comm_strat/cr1.htm.

Think about the below five questions:

• What is your objective and message?

• Who is your audience?

• What is the timescale?

• How are you going to get the message across?

• How will you evaluate the results?