Perceptions of crime and social change With a discussion about studies on fear of crime and punitiveness

Established concepts and methods that take crime as a reference point to study fear of crime and punitiveness are considered too narrow to understand the broader background motives of these perceptions and attitudes It can now be shown that social change and social protest - coupled with a rising consciousness of risk brought on by an insecure - world create overarching feelings of anxiety and insecurity among individuals Into which fear of crime is subsumed As risk is neither a fact nor a thing but rather "a way of thinking", it is applied to all sorts of possible though unknown catastrophes and is the inspiration for the development of massive preventive strategies designed to meet the unknown The purported risk posed by terrorism and other kinds of crime has meant that preventive strategies have been used to seriously restrict civil liberties and rights otherwise guaranteed by the constitution, to the point that the rule of law is little by little being replaced by a "governance through risk".