FEAR OF CRIME IN ISRAEL - A MULTIDIMENSIONAL APPROACH

Objective. Fear of crime may express not just fear for oneself but als o for others. This research aims to study the different dimensions of fear of crime and to explore if different kinds of fear are affected b y different factors. Methods. Data were gathered from a survey of a ra ndom sample of the population in the third largest city in Israel. Fac tor analysis was used to establish the different dimensions of fear of crime and OLS regression to study the correlates of different fears. Results. Fear of crime was found to be a concept composed of four dime nsions: fear of family victimization, fear of personal victimization, fear of violent crime, and fear of white collar crime. Only the percep tion that too many criminals reside in one's neighborhood was found to be significant in all the dimensions of fear. Conclusions. The result s suggest fear of crime is a multidimensional variable composed of the concern for one's family as well as about one's self-victimization.