What Might Reduce Crime Does Not Reduce Fear of Crime

Criminologists use Virtual Reality to assess the impact of street lighting and watching-eyes interventions. In a virtual reality study, a team of researchers - including criminologists from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law - find environmental crime reduction interventions may not be effective or may even be counterproductive when it comes to reducing fear of crime. It has long been established that changing an envi­ron­ment can reduce crime. For example, increased light in an area has the potential to discourage would-be offenders by making them more visible. Along the same lines, people have been found to be more likely to refrain from committing crimes when observed or in the presence of images of eyes - something that has been dubbed the watching-eyes effect. But do corresponding neighborhood crime reduction interventions double up as measures to reduce fear of crime? What impact do they have on average citizens? - Virtual Reality in criminology. In a first-of-its-kind virtual reality study , criminologists based in Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK - in­clud­ing Patrick McClanahan, Aniek Siezenga, and Jean-Louis van Gelder from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law - found that environmental crime reduction interventions cannot automatically be transferred to fear of crime reduction measures.