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Chapter 4: Fear of crime
Key points
- Fear of crime is less pronounced in rural than in metropolitan areas.
- Respondents were most worried about becoming a victim of murder (33%), burglary (17%) and stock theft (16%).
- 61% used rudimentary forms of physical protection to safeguard their homes — only 33% felt safer as a result.
- There is a weak correlation between feelings of safety and policing. Those who think the police are performing well do not feel safer than those who have little confidence in the SAPS.
- People who often see a police official on duty in their village and who live less than one kilometre from a police station, feel less safe than those who rarely see the police and who live more than 50 kilometres from a police station.
Introduction
Information about the fear of crime and public perceptions of safety should be as important to policy makers, the police and crime prevention practitioners as information about crime itself. Crime affects people in ways that are more insidious than actual victimisation. The fear of crime — or more accurately anxiety and concern about crime — have become commonplace in everyday life in South Africa. This fear is caused not only by actual experiences of victimisation, but also by anxiety about the consequences of crime and by feelings of helplessness to prevent crime.
Anxiety about crime can have negative effects on behaviour: feelings of insecurity are heightened, people’s sense of well-being and their quality of life are eroded, freedom of movement becomes restricted, and defensive and wary behaviour increases.1 In South Africa, probably the most serious consequence of fear of crime and the perception that the criminal justice system is ineffective is the widespread support for ‘alternative’ forms of justice and vigilante activity.2 Allied to this has been a hardening of attitudes towards criminal justice evidenced in support for the death penalty and for harsh sentences.3
Fear of crime and its consequences can also have implications for crime reduction interventions in an area. Where feelings of insecurity and dissatisfaction with the criminal justice system are high, it will be more difficult to introduce longer term measures aimed at reducing the causes of crime. The public is more likely to support short-term, high profile law enforcement type interventions.
The survey covered the following issues regarding the fear of crime:
- how safe people feel during the day and after dark while walking in their village and their fields, or collecting wood/water;
- the types of crime that people fear the most; and
- the types of measures used to protect the home.
Feelings of safety
The vast majority of rural respondents felt safe during the day — whether walking in their village, working in the fields or collecting firewood or water (figure 9). However, the opposite is true at night, particularly when victims are in their fields or collecting wood or water (figure 10).
Figure 9: How safe people feel when walking to their village (n=756)
Figure 10: How safe people feel when working in their fields, or collecting firewood and water (n=756)
People living in deep rural South Africa are much more likely to feel safe than those in metropolitan areas (table 17).
Table 17: Comparative perspective: Feelings of safety
|
Daytime (%) |
Night time (%) |
|
Safe |
Unsafe |
Safe |
Unsafe |
| Johannesburg |
60 |
40 |
17 |
83 |
| Pretoria |
81 |
19 |
31 |
69 |
| Durban |
68 |
32 |
27 |
73 |
| Cape Town |
72 |
28 |
28 |
72 |
| Source: ISS city victim surveys |
The fear of crime is caused by several factors, including:
- actual victimisation;
- the perceived risk of becoming a victim;
- anxiety about the consequences of crime;
- feelings of helplessness to prevent crime; and
- the perceived ability of the police to offer protection and enforce the law.
In terms of actual victimisation patterns, chapter 3 showed that people living in deep rural areas are most at risk of stock theft and burglary. Levels of murder were also high compared to other violent crimes: 4.7% of respondents reported a murder in their household between 1993 and July 1998, while 5% reported being assaulted and only 3% robbed. In the Johannesburg metropolitan area, by comparison, 4% of the population reported a murder in their household between 1993 and July 1997, while 16% were assaulted and 24% were robbed.4
This may explain why rural respondents were most likely to fear murder above other types of crime, followed by burglary and stock theft (table 18). Thus, people fear those crimes they are most likely to experience, as well as those with the most serious consequences. The data also suggests that fear of crime is not necessarily irrational, but often based on actual experiences and should therefore be taken seriously.
Table 18: Type of crime that people fear most in their area (n = 683)
| Crime |
Percentage |
| Murder |
33 |
| Burglary |
17 |
| Stock theft |
16 |
| Rape |
8 |
| Theft |
5 |
| Robbery |
4 |
| Child abuse |
2 |
| Assault |
2 |
| Drug & gang related |
1 |
| Other |
12 |
Types of protection used
The ability to prevent crime reduces feelings of helplessness and can thus reduce the fear of crime. Most rural respondents (61%) used some form of physical protection in their homes (table 19); the remaining 37% had no means of protection. However, such measures do not necessarily make those who use them feel safer. Only 33% of respondents whose homes were protected, said they felt safer as a result; 40% said there was no change and 27% felt unsafe despite taking these precautions.
Table 19: Types of protection used to safeguard home
| Protection |
Number |
Percentage |
| Dog |
251 |
33 |
| Wood/thorn bushes |
137 |
18 |
| High fence/wall |
113 |
15 |
| Axe/stick/club |
99 |
13 |
| Traditional methods |
73 |
10 |
| Special door lock |
37 |
5 |
| Gun |
23 |
3 |
| Burglar bars on windows |
12 |
2 |
| Burglar alarm |
10 |
1 |
| Security guard |
4 |
1 |
| Community patrols |
2 |
0 |
However, it is possible that measures other than physical protection for the home may make people feel safer. For example, 54 (7%) respondents said that their community made its own arrangements to protect itself. Although this is a small percentage of all respondents, 80% of these said this was an effective way of securing the area — in stark contrast to only 35% of all respondents who believed the police could control crime in their area.
Safety and policing
The fear of crime is also related to public confidence in the police’s ability to provide assistance to victims and to enforce the law. The majority of rural respondents said the police in their area were doing a poor job to control crime (see chapter 6 below). They were also likely to believe that, compared to previous years, the effectiveness of the police service in their area stayed the same or became worse, rather than improved. The survey data shows that most rural respondents rarely (if ever) see a police official and have limited access to the police (transport and telephones).
It would be expected that those rural respondents with little confidence in the police and limited access to the services offered by the police would be more inclined to feel unsafe. This hypothesis, however, is not supported by the survey results:
- Equal proportions of people who thought the police were doing a ‘good job’ to control crime in their area and who said the police were doing a ‘poor job’, said they felt safe at night (figure 11).
- More respondents who believed the police service has become worse compared to previous years, felt safe than those who felt unsafe (figure 12).
- Rather than increasing feelings of safety, greater police visibility seems more likely to make rural respondents feel unsafe. Those people who saw a police official on duty in their village less than once a month or ‘never’, were more likely to feel safe at night than people who saw the police at least once a month (figure 13).
- Most respondents who live more than 50 kilometres from the nearest police station felt safe at night, compared to only 23% of those who live less than one kilometre from a police station (figure 14). However, as the distance from the nearest police station increases from one kilometre to 50 kilometres, the proportion of people who feel safe declines.
Figure 11: People who feel safe at night in relation to their assessment of police performance in their area
Figure 12: People who feel safe in relation to whether they think policing has improved compared to previous years
Figure 13: People who feel safe in relation to the frequency with which they see the police in their area
Figure 14: People who feel safe in relation to the distance of their homes from a police station
These findings suggest that feelings of safety in deep rural areas are not closely associated with how well the police are believed to be performing. This could be because policing is so weak in these areas that people simply do not associate feeling safe with police activity. It is also likely that other factors in rural areas have more impact on the fear of crime, such as the geographic isolation of communities, the vulnerability of individuals as a result, and the inability of people to protect themselves from crime.
The results also show that those who have the greatest contact with the police feel more unsafe than those who hardly ever see the police. It is likely that, given the resource constraints facing the SAPS in rural areas (see Chapter 6 below), people only see police officials during times of ‘crisis’. In other words, it is only when a situation is very serious — which usually implies high levels of violence — that the police will visit an area. As a result, people associate a police presence with danger rather than with safety.
This does not explain, however, why people who live very close to a police station (less than one kilometre) feel much less safe than those who live more than 50 kilometres from a police station. It is possible that crime levels are lower in the more remote rural areas than in the areas where police stations are located — usually on main roads and in more populated regions or villages. It is also possible that people who live close to a police station have higher expectations of the police’s ability to protect them, than those who live further away. Since rural policing is weak, these expectations are probably not met, causing people to feel less safe.
Notes
- C Mirrlees-Black, P Mayhew & A Percy, The 1996 British crime survey: England and Wales, Home Office Statistical Bulletin, 19/96, Research and Statistics Directorate, London, 24 September 1996.
- See M Schönteich, Justice versus retribution: Attitudes to punishment in the Eastern Cape, ISS Monograph 45, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, February 2000.
- Ibid.
- A Louw, M Shaw, L Camerer & R Robertshaw, Crime in Johannesburg: Results of a city victim survey, ISS Monograph 18, Institute for Security Studies, Halfway House, February 1998.
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