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'.