“It Makes My Head Explode”: Perceptions of Crime in the Age of Anxiety

• In Event: The Role of Technology in Perceptions of Crime and Victimization Risk

Abstract

Over the past five decades, the wealth of the richest Americans has exploded, while working-class wages have stagnated, the middle class has continued to shrink, and homeownership has become increasingly inaccessible. Kids spend less time than ever before in unsupervised outdoor play, and young adults suffer from anxiety, depression, and self-harm at rates higher than any other living generation. Trust in core institutions—including the federal government, the media, and the criminal legal system—has plummeted. Social scientists have described this moment as an “age of anxiety,” shaped by growing economic inequality, declining social cohesion, and worsening mental health outcomes. In this paper, I examine Americans’ emotional and behavioral responses to crime in this anxious age, drawing on in-depth interviews with a politically diverse sample of men and women living in American cities. My analysis demonstrates that declining to practice “interpretive labor” (Graeber 2015)—the everyday work of imaginatively reaching across social distances to comprehend the motives and perceptions of others—operates as a quintessential safety strategy for an anxious age. While declining to practice interpretive labor strengthens individual-level existential security, it exacerbates political divisions and social insularity.

Author

• Rebecca Lennox, University of Missouri-St. Louis