Gender And The Fear Of Crime Paradox

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Among all of the demographic features tested to determine which elements impact an individual’s fear of crime, gender identification has shown to be interconnected with these levels (Cops & Pleysier, 2010). It is important to note that females, on average, have reported higher levels of fear of crime than men, despite having lower victimization rates. On the other hand, males have reported lower levels of fear of crime whilst having extremely high levels of victimization rates (Fox, Nobles, & Piquero, 2009). This phenomenon where individuals having relatively low rates of victimization reporting the highest levels of fear of crime is referred to as "the fear of crime paradox." (Cops & Pleysier, 2010). However, studies show that the gap between females’ and males’ fear of crime levels is narrowing. Is this caused by the fact that women are becoming less fearful of crime or are men becoming more fearful?
A major factor when discussing the link between gender and the fear of crime paradox is the concept of victimization. Even though females are not as highly victimized as their male
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As stated by Ortega & Myles (1987), gender as a factor of fear of crime has a notable impact in determining the variation between fear of crime levels. Not only this, but Ortega & Myles (1987) also discovered that the significant impact of gender does not become eradicated once utilizing education or income as controls. According to Fox et al. (2009), the study concluded that women are more fearful than males for each and every kind of crime. In addition, females showed significantly higher levels of fear of crime during both day and night. Even though all of these studies show that women have significantly higher levels of fear of crime compared to males, it is still important to remember that women are much less likely to become victimized compared to

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