Fear of Rape, Behavioral Adaptations, and Personal Well-being

• In Event: 30662 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4: Violence/ Fear of Crime

Abstract

Feeling unsafe and fear of victimization, in particular fear of rape, act as mechanisms of social control (Stanko,1995; Rader, 2023), constraining the behavior of the fearful who may adapt their daily routines or avoid settings and situations perceived as unsafe. In this paper, we focus on the routine actions that female college students take to make themselves feel safer on and around campus. Our primary research question is “what behavioral adaptations are women taking in their daily lives, and how are these related to fear of victimization and of men, perceptions of safety, social integration, and perceptions of social and physical disorder on campus?”

We analyze survey data that we collected from 1028 female-identifying undergraduate students at two mid-Atlantic metropolitan universities, one a historically black institution (HBI) and the other a historically white institution with a racially diverse student body, between spring 2017 – spring 2019. Both action-based and avoidance-based precautionary behaviors are common among female college students. Results of binomial logistic regression models indicate that the likelihood of engaging in precautionary behaviors is related to measures of fear of victimization. Implications for female students, campuses crime prevention efforts, and future research are discussed.

Authors

• Marion R. Hughes, Towson University

• Jennifer Jean Langdon, Towson University

• Douglas Pryor, Towson University