Defining and Measuring Fear of Crime: A New Validated Scale Created from Emotion Theory, Qualitative Interviews, and Factor Analyses

Abstract

Fear of crime researchers have long debated how to best define and measure fear of crime. There is disagreement about the definition of fear of crime, which has led to inconsistent measurement. Our goal was to develop a new fear of crime scale using a theory of emotion and rigorous methodology. Scale development involved five major stages: in-depth interviews to understand how people describe their fear of crime, qualitative analysis to develop questionnaire items, pretesting, factor analyses, and psychometric validation. Qualitative interviews (N = 29) revealed that people use words like “fear,” “worry,” and “concern” interchangeably. After qualitative analysis led to an initial item pool, factor analyses yielded a 10-item, one-factor scale. Quantitative analyses (N = 665) revealed standardized factor loadings between .715 and .888, an internal consistency of α = .945, and convergent and divergent validity. Our new measure will allow greater precision when researching fear of crime.