FEAR OF CRIME AND FEAR OF FALLING - ENGLISH ANXIETIES APPROACHING THEMILLENNIUM

This paper develops an analysis of the ways in which the issues of 'un employment', 'social order' and 'crime' appeared to be dealt with, wit hin the dominant culture of English society in the mid-1990s. Revistin g the famous debate between Perry Anderson, Tom Nairn and Edward Thomp son in the 1960s, the paper argues for an understanding of the specifi city of the English 'social formation' and, in particular, the sensibi lities of the dominant middle class of that country Inspired in pur by field work in the English suburb in which the authors currently resid e, the paper applies this approach to the analysis of the deep anxieti es that are routinely exhibited in such areas in the mid-1990s over cr ime-anxieties which are then separately examined along six discrete di mensions: a) the safety of self, b) the safety of home and employment position, c) personal status and the symbolic world, d) the loss of vi rtue, e) the fears for England, and f) the crisis of the inheritance T he paper concludes by arguing for an interpretation of the widespread fear of crime as a complex social metaphor, with a specific social/nat ional provenance, invisible to the mass of contemporary empirical soci al scientists in England whose work is parasitical upon such fears.