TESTING SOCIAL-DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL MODELS OF FEAR OF CRIME IN SLOVENIA

Research and theorising about the fear of crime has, in the main, been dominated by researchers who have relied upon sociological or socio-demographic variables to account for variations in fear levels. Whilst this body of work has contributed greatly to our understanding of the fear of crime, we are still far from a full understanding of this important and most corrosive aspect of contemporary society. This paper first compares three independent evaluations of what is currently just about the only social psychological model of the fear of crime. The data, collected in Slovenia (1998), Scotland and Holland, sheds further light on both the social psychological model proposed and the wider study of the fear of crime. In addition to this comparison, the authors have conducted a survey on fear of crime using the same questionnaire in Slovenia in 2001. Some preliminary results are presented in this paper.