Definition:

This indicator refers to the proportion of the adult population who feel safe walking alone in their neighbourhood after dark.

Concepts:

“Neighbourhood” – the indicator aims to capture fear of crime in the context of people’s everyday lives. It does so by limiting the area in question to the “neighbourhood” or “area they live in”. Various other formulations of local neighbourhood may be appropriate depending on cultural, physical and language context. Providing a universally applicable definition of neighborhood is challenging, as one’s neighbourhood is a subjective concept that will mean different things to different people.^{^[1]}

“After dark”- the indicator should specifically capture respondent’s feelings and perceptions when walking alone after dark. The specific reference to darkness is important because according to research,^[2] darkness is one of the factors individuals perceive as important when assessing whether a situation is dangerous. While the specific reference to “after dark” is the preferrable wording and widely used in crime victimisation surveys,^[3] a suitable alternative wording is “at night”.^[4] Specifying an exact time of the day (e.g. 6pm), however, is not advisable as darkness (not time of day per se) is the factor that affects individuals perception of safety, and cross-national as well as seasonal variation in the onset of darkness makes it problematic to establish a universally suitable threshold to define nighttime.

¹

Ferraro, K. F., & LaGrange, R. L.. 1987. The measurement of fear of crime. Sociological Inquiry, 57(1), 70–101. ↑

²

See e.g. Warr, Mark. 1990. "Dangerous Situations: Social Context and Fear of Victimization". Social Forces. 68 (3): 891-907. ↑

³

UNODC-UNECE (2010) Manual on Victimization Surveys, p. 57; ↑

⁴

Roberts B. (2014) Fear of Walking Alone at Night. In: Michalos A.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_1023 ↑

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