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Crime, community, context & fear : influences on informal social control in an affluent English suburb
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Steventon, Graham John (2001) Crime, community, context & fear : influences on informal social control in an affluent English suburb. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b1373125~S1
Abstract
Based on ethnographic research, involving observations, participant
observation and in-depth interviews, this thesis explores the impact of crime
and the influences on informal social control in an affluent, middle class
suburb. The research focused on the interaction between estate design, the
environment, social and community life, and fear of crime, and their effects on
residents in the neighbourhood. Despite low recorded crime rates, crime was
perceived to be a problem. This situation arose from a paradox of community
dynamics which, on the one hand, increased fear of crime, but on the other,
contained crime. Apart from small-scale and extremely localised solidarities, a
socially fragmented community existed in which limited and loose-knit local
social networks, strong desires for privacy, and atomisation prevailed. These
factors, coupled with busy lifestyles and features of the suburban environment,
resulted in isolation and enhanced fear of crime.
However, fear arose more from concerns about crime in wider society together
with general anxieties rooted in change in late-modernity, than actual risk of
victimisation. Crime control was rarely based on conm-iunity action, instead
being individualistic and reliant on sophisticated target hardening. Low crime,
therefore, was less attributable to the pursuits of 'active citizens' envisaged by
community crime prevention policies and more to structural processes of
affluence, status and property ownership which created an exclusive and
exclusionary community of vested interest, common identity and shared values.
As a study of affluent suburban life, the research contributes to the community
studies tradition. However, the main importance of the research is its
implications for community crime prevention. By highlighting the complex and
contextual nature of informal social control and the influences which impact on
it, the necessity to tailor crime prevention more to local needs is emphasised.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Fear of crime -- Great Britain, Suburban crimes -- Great Britain, Social control -- Great Britain, Middle class -- Great Britain | ||||
Official Date: | January 2001 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Department of Sociology | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Foster, Janet, 1961- | ||||
Extent: | ix, 276 leaves | ||||
Language: | eng |
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