Murray Lee – författare

Over the past four decades the fear of crime has become an increasingly significant concern for criminologists, victimologists, policy makers, politicians, police, the media and the general public. For many practitioners reducing fear of crime has become almost as important an issue as reducing crime itself. The identification of fear of crime as a serious policy problem has given rise to a massive amount of research activity, political discussion and intellectual debate.

Despite this activity, actually reducing levels of fear of crime has proved difficult. Even in recent years when many western nations have experienced reductions in the levels of reported crime, fear of crime has often proven intractable. The result has been the development of what amounts to a fear of crime industry. Previous studies have identified conceptual challenges, theoretical cul-de-sacs and methodological problems with the use of the concept fear of crime. Yet it has endured as both an organizing principal for a body of research and a term to describe a social malady. This provocative, wide ranging book asks how and why fear of crime retains this cultural, political and social scientific currency despite concerted criticism of its utility? It subjects the concept to rigorous critical scrutiny taking examples from the UK, North America and Australia.

Part One of Inventing Fear of Crime traces the historical emergence of the fear of crime concept, while Part Two addresses the issue of fear of crime and political rationality, and analyses fear of crime as a tactic or technique of government. This book will be essential reading on one of the key issues in government and politics in contemporary society.

Over the past four decades the fear of crime has become an increasingly significant concern for criminologists, victimologists, policy makers, politicians, police, the media and the general public. For many practitioners reducing fear of crime has become almost as important an issue as reducing crime itself. The identification of fear of crime as a serious policy problem has given rise to a massive amount of research activity, political discussion and intellectual debate.

Despite this activity, actually reducing levels of fear of crime has proved difficult. Even in recent years when many western nations have experienced reductions in the levels of reported crime, fear of crime has often proven intractable. The result has been the development of what amounts to a fear of crime industry. Previous studies have identified conceptual challenges, theoretical cul-de-sacs and methodological problems with the use of the concept fear of crime. Yet it has endured as both an organizing principal for a body of research and a term to describe a social malady. This provocative, wide ranging book asks how and why fear of crime retains this cultural, political and social scientific currency despite concerted criticism of its utility? It subjects the concept to rigorous critical scrutiny taking examples from the UK, North America and Australia.

Part One of Inventing Fear of Crime traces the historical emergence of the fear of crime concept, while Part Two addresses the issue of fear of crime and political rationality, and analyses fear of crime as a tactic or technique of government. This book will be essential reading on one of the key issues in government and politics in contemporary society.

An attention to the ''fear of crime'' has found its way into governmental interventions in crime prevention and into popular discourse with many newspapers, local government and the like conducting their own fear of crime surveys. As a concept, ''fear of crime'' has also produced considerable academic debate since it entered the criminological vocabulary in the 1960s.

Bringing together a collection of new and cutting edge articles from key scholars in criminology, Fear of Crime challenges many assumptions which remain submerged in attempts to measure and attribute cause to crime fear. But, in questioning the orthodoxy of ''fear of crime'' models, along with inquiries that have supposed that fear is objectively quantifiable and measurable, the articles collected here also offer new paradigms and methods of inquiry for approaching ''fear of crime''.

An attention to the ''fear of crime'' has found its way into governmental interventions in crime prevention and into popular discourse with many newspapers, local government and the like conducting their own fear of crime surveys. As a concept, ''fear of crime'' has also produced considerable academic debate since it entered the criminological vocabulary in the 1960s.

Bringing together a collection of new and cutting edge articles from key scholars in criminology, Fear of Crime challenges many assumptions which remain submerged in attempts to measure and attribute cause to crime fear. But, in questioning the orthodoxy of ''fear of crime'' models, along with inquiries that have supposed that fear is objectively quantifiable and measurable, the articles collected here also offer new paradigms and methods of inquiry for approaching ''fear of crime''.

This book examines the relationship between police, media and the public and analyses the shifting techniques and technologies through which they communicate. In a critical discussion of contemporary and emerging modes of mediatized police work, Lee and McGovern demonstrate how the police engage with the public through a fluid and quickly expanding assemblage of communications and information technologies.

Policing and Media explores the rationalities that are driving police/media relations and asks; how these relationships differ (or not) from the ways they have operated historically; what new technologies are influencing and being deployed by policing organizations and police public relations professionals and why; how operational policing is shaping and being shaped by new technologies of communication; and what forms of resistance are evident to the manufacture of preferred images of police. The authors suggest that new forms of simulated and hyper real policing using platforms such as social media and reality television are increasingly positioning police organisations as media organisations, and in some cases enabling police to bypass the traditional media altogether. The book is informed by empirical research spanning ten years in this field and includes chapters on journalism and police, policing and social media, policing and reality television, and policing resistances.

It will be of interest to those researching and teaching in the fields of Criminology, Policing and Media, as well as police and media professionals.

This book examines the relationship between police, media and the public and analyses the shifting techniques and technologies through which they communicate. In a critical discussion of contemporary and emerging modes of mediatized police work, Lee and McGovern demonstrate how the police engage with the public through a fluid and quickly expanding assemblage of communications and information technologies.

Policing and Media explores the rationalities that are driving police/media relations and asks; how these relationships differ (or not) from the ways they have operated historically; what new technologies are influencing and being deployed by policing organizations and police public relations professionals and why; how operational policing is shaping and being shaped by new technologies of communication; and what forms of resistance are evident to the manufacture of preferred images of police. The authors suggest that new forms of simulated and hyper real policing using platforms such as social media and reality television are increasingly positioning police organisations as media organisations, and in some cases enabling police to bypass the traditional media altogether. The book is informed by empirical research spanning ten years in this field and includes chapters on journalism and police, policing and social media, policing and reality television, and policing resistances.

It will be of interest to those researching and teaching in the fields of Criminology, Policing and Media, as well as police and media professionals.

The Routledge International Handbook on Fear of Crime brings together original and international state of the art contributions of theoretical, empirical, policy-related scholarship on the intersection of perceptions of crime, victimisation, vulnerability and risk. This is timely as fear of crime has now been a focus of scholarly and policy interest for some fifty years and shows little sign of abating. Research on fear of crime is demonstrative of the inter-disciplinarity of criminology, drawing in the disciplines of sociology, psychology, political science, history, cultural studies, gender studies, planning and architecture, philosophy and human geography. This collection draws in many of these interdisciplinary themes.

This collections also extends the boundaries of fear of crime research. It does this both methodologically and conceptually, but perhaps more importantly it moves us beyond some of the often repeated debates in this field to focus on novel topics from unique perspectives. The book begins by plotting the history of fear of crime’s development, then moves on to investigate the methodological and theoretical debates that have ensued and the policy transfer that occurred across jurisdictions. Key elements in debates and research on fear of crime concerning gender, race and ethnicity are covered, as are contemporary themes in fear of crime research, such as regulation, security, risk and the fear of terrorism, the mapping of fear of crime and fear of crime beyond urban landscapes. The final sections of the book explore geographies of fear and future and unique directions for this research.

The Routledge International Handbook on Fear of Crime brings together original and international state of the art contributions of theoretical, empirical, policy-related scholarship on the intersection of perceptions of crime, victimisation, vulnerability and risk. This is timely as fear of crime has now been a focus of scholarly and policy interest for some fifty years and shows little sign of abating. Research on fear of crime is demonstrative of the inter-disciplinarity of criminology, drawing in the disciplines of sociology, psychology, political science, history, cultural studies, gender studies, planning and architecture, philosophy and human geography. This collection draws in many of these interdisciplinary themes.

This collections also extends the boundaries of fear of crime research. It does this both methodologically and conceptually, but perhaps more importantly it moves us beyond some of the often repeated debates in this field to focus on novel topics from unique perspectives. The book begins by plotting the history of fear of crime’s development, then moves on to investigate the methodological and theoretical debates that have ensued and the policy transfer that occurred across jurisdictions. Key elements in debates and research on fear of crime concerning gender, race and ethnicity are covered, as are contemporary themes in fear of crime research, such as regulation, security, risk and the fear of terrorism, the mapping of fear of crime and fear of crime beyond urban landscapes. The final sections of the book explore geographies of fear and future and unique directions for this research.