Haunted: Uncertainty, Insecurity, and Fear of Crime

• In Event: Lightning Talk: Perceptions, Knowledge, and Attitudes Towards Criminal Justice Issues

Abstract

In the study of public attitudes about crime, we know (mis)perceptions about crime may influence people’s perceptions of safety and preferences for policies. We know attitudes are also expressive of anger, fear, and uncertainty. These feelings may be understood not only as dissatisfaction with current situations but also as a nostalgic longing for “better” times. Yet society is also haunted by the failures of the past, which linger on the edges of both nostalgia and uncertainty. For example, crackdowns on crime excite the public, politicians, and the media, but they leave behind people, unnamed cultural scars, and seemingly intractable social ills. The ghosts of the past, the existential precariousness of the present, and anxieties about the future – for both self and society – contribute to sense of ontological insecurity beyond instrumental worries about safety. In an historic moment of distrust, politization of the “other,” manipulation of the past, and widespread uncertainty about the present and future, we might ask ourselves, “What happens when we believe in ghosts?” That is, research on attitudes about crime must contend with how we can assess and measure the ways in which people translate their fears of the unknown into the “known” – crime.

Author

• Lisa Kort-Butler, University of Nebraska-Lincoln