Fear of Crime

Ta-Nehisi Coates had a very interesting post the other day on the difficult subject of race and crime. I wanted to flag a bit of a side theme, though, both in his post and in some of the comments which is about fear of crime. He talks about how even when he lived in DC years ago and the crime rate was much higher, he wasn't frightened:

For most of my tenure in D.C., I was going to Howard University. This was before the advent of gentrification, and it was generally thought that Howard students, themselves, were easy marks. But me and most my friends knew that to be a simplification. It's true that if you walked through, say, Clifton Terrace star-gazing, if you're roaming the streets acting like it can't happen (as us ancient hip-hop heads say), you were very likely to get stuck. But as anyone whose spent some time in the city knows, if you moved through the streets with purpose, if you kept the ice-grill on and looked like you were all business, if you kept that sixth sense of yours buzzing, the chances of you actually falling prey were pretty low.

Similarly, Shani-O says in comments:

I was at HU when gentrification really started taking off (freshman year: no white people. senior year: white people jogging with their dogs on campus) but I've had friends mugged by Slowe Hall, and known kids who were *shot* up by Drew. Yet we weren't afraid. The idea was: keep your head up, don't smile, pull out your cell and call a friend if necessary as you walk somewhere questionable.

I guess I agree with Sonia. The whites I saw walking from the Shaw-Howard Metro stop to their new homes around Georgia Ave had the I'm-about-business ice grill down pat, and it was rare to hear of anything happening to them.

Now I think I basically agree with those sentiments. I was a kid in New York City back in the high-crime days, and when I first moved to my neighborhood in DC the neighborhood was much more dangerous than it is now. In that time I've been fortunate enough never to be robbed which I attribute to a mix of luck and knowing the right ways to behave. And I wouldn't consider myself to be someone who spends a lot of time experiencing the subjective emotional state "being afraid of crime."

On another level, however, the actions that are being described here just are fear of crime. Knowing you shouldn't walk down certain streets or through certain housing developments (I live right by the former Clifton Terrace) and that if you go to certain neighborhoods you need to carry yourself a certain way -- those things are fear of crime. They're not the worst things in the world, but we shouldn't kid ourselves that people engaging in tons of defensive behavior aren't scared of being victimized.

Comments

There's a lot of talk of gentrification in Austin, now that the former airport is being redeveloped and the strip along the interstate is now prime real estate.

But, when I remind myself that the people who drove the crime rate up in those neighborhoods are being driven out, I can't find it in myself to grieve for them.
.

Posted by Grand Moff Texan | July 9, 2008 12:26 PM

I don't really agree with this premise. I think there's a qualitative difference between modifying your behavior to avoid victimization and being "scared" of crime. The person who does the latter actually lives in fear, the person who does the former does not. More to the point, I think someone who is legitimately scared of crime is more likely to have political positions in the "get tough on crime" vein.

For what it's worth, I've lived in the District and now in the first-collar burbs for a total of ten years now. I'm not particularly scared of crime, and Ta-Nehisi's description of the fear of white DC bloggers seems foreign to me. Perhaps I travel in different social circles, but I just don't know anyone who has that sort of hand-wringing attitude. I know crime exists, but I see it as a fact of city life and I don't think of myself as being particularly at risk.

Posted by Jake H. | July 9, 2008 12:29 PM

For Coates another factor is that he was raised in such a high-crime neighborhood that everywhere he's lived since is *objectively* safer, while for almost all white arrivals in the Big City they're moving from safer to less-safe settings.

Posted by Rich | July 9, 2008 12:30 PM

I think the question is, for a lot of people, how much crime are they willing to tolerate? Some people might regard having their car broken into or the possibility of getting mugged as "the cost of doing business," but for most people, their tolerance for such an episode is 0.

I did once consider moving to a rather isolated part of Shaw. However, there was no one around on the streets at night, and I realized that, maybe not tonight, or tomorrow, but someday I'm going to be heading home at night and someone will mug me, or I might wake up and someone might smash the window of my car and steal stuff. How willing was I to allow for that possibility? Not willing at all, particularly when I had other options. You're right, crime is a manageable risk that you can accept and deal with (much like the risk of getting into a car accident), but the question is how willing are you to accept that your number might come up, sooner or later?

Crime in DC isn't a problem as much as the problem is just a general tolerance for lawlessness. It's one thing to know that crime is a possibility. It's another thing to realize that the criminals can go about their business with little consequence. Some witnesses recently saw a guy drive down the street in Columbia Heights smashing car windows with a crowbar. The witnesses figured out who the guy was. The prosecutors didn't care, as they figured they had bigger fish to fry.

Posted by Tyro | July 9, 2008 12:32 PM

I lived on the South Side of Chicago for almost 10 years (3 years in a mixed neighborhood, 6+ years in a white "ethnic" neighborhood). The only time I was a victim was when some punks followed me off the train on the east side of Comiskey (so the border between a reasonably safe cops-and-firefighters neighborhood and the projects) as I was going to my car. I didn't have any money, so they tried to take my briefcase. I had important papers in there, so like a fool, I fought them off (which would be more impressive if any of them had been older than 14) with only a sore jaw and a couple of bruises to show for it. As I was driving home, I saw the twits walking down the street about a half mile later. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to run them down in my car.

Posted by Joe | July 9, 2008 12:38 PM

It's not fear. It's adapting to your surroundings. You wouldn't describe turning down your car radio when you drive through the retirement community as a fear of old people.

Posted by bperk | July 9, 2008 12:39 PM

As long as we're talking about perception vs. reality, I think it's probably worth it at this point to throw in the obligatory mention of the fact that our nation's small towns and rural areas are not the safe havens that they are often perceived to be. Meth, pot farms, alcoholism & drunk driving, widespread unemployment & poverty, crazy youth with a lot of time on their hands, and a small number of cops expected to cover a huge amount of ground. You're not necessarily safer outside of the Big Bad City.

Posted by Jake H. | July 9, 2008 12:44 PM

"On another level, however, the actions that are being described here just are fear of crime."

This sentence is a tipoff to how incoherent Matt is being, because fear is an emotion, not an action, so it makes no sense to equate these actions with fear.

Now we could try to clean this up and make Matt's claim into something like that these actions must necessarily be motivated by fear of crime. While more sensible on its face, I would still think that is wrong--to be concerned enough about crime to want to modify your behavior somewhat to reduce your chances of being a crime victim is not the same thing as feeling fear of crime. And that is again because fear is an emotion, and we can be motivated to avoid things without necessarily actively feeling fear of those things.

Posted by DTM | July 9, 2008 12:45 PM

Re: As long as we're talking about perception vs. reality, I think it's probably worth it at this point to throw in the obligatory mention of the fact that our nation's small towns and rural areas are not the safe havens that they are often perceived to be.

Don't forget sex-crimes too. Some of the small towns in Western MA have (apparently) a lot of incest.

I guess the larger point is that people who live in DC and other high crime cities shouldn't _need_ to take these kind of defencive actions, and if they do then that is a sign that something about our society is very wrong. I mean really, if "don't smile' and 'act like you're all about business' are what you need to do to stay safe, then something is not right. The State is not doing its job of keeping the streets safe.

Posted by Hector | July 9, 2008 12:56 PM

When I worked in PG high schools with some seriously "troubled" kids in the late 90s we found we could often keep them from bullying new kids in the program if we hinted that we thought they had "some people" at Clifton. I never thought that place was going to better and that is why I am stuck working with the youth and not developing real estate.

Posted by William | July 9, 2008 12:57 PM

It is worth remembering is that shifting your normal demeanor is also a penalty, a small unpleasantness to yourself and the community.

Posted by Megan | July 9, 2008 1:01 PM

City life: safe if you don't smile!

Posted by Chris M | July 9, 2008 1:05 PM

It is worth remembering is that shifting your normal demeanor is also a penalty, a small unpleasantness to yourself and the community.

Posted by Megan | July 9, 2008 1:10 PM

I'm fascinated that no one picks up on the magic thinking here. After all, statistically, Mr. Coates belonged, and belongs, to one of the most physically endangered subgroups in America.

In my experience, walking around with your wits about you is an urban instinct well worth honing; but it doesn't give you a cloak of invisibility or a super-impenetrable force field. When fate puts you in the crosshairs of someone who decides to victimize you, your options dwindle quickly no matter how cool/cold you may be.

Posted by elle loco | July 9, 2008 1:11 PM

Walking around with your guard up all the time is chronic stress, and it's really, really bad for your health. It's part of the reason the poor have shorter and sicker lives. Sapolsky's "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" is all about this.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Zebras-Dont-Ulcers-Third/dp/0805073698

Cities don't have to be like this, as we've all seen in NYC.

Posted by Chris M | July 9, 2008 1:18 PM

They're not the worst things in the world, but we shouldn't kid ourselves that people engaging in tons of defensive behavior aren't scared of being victimized.

Sure, as is "move far away, cultivate an illusion of safety through homogeneity, and surround yourself in a steel casing powered by burning petroleum any time you want to travel," which is the primary alternative solution. Most of the places people think of as inherently safe get that reputation because they struggle mightily to physically separate themselves from poor or socially excluded people.

Gentrification has major problems of course, but the fact that people are coming to face to face with each other in mixed income neighborhoods is a huge start to the re-integration of our society after the enormous division of the 1960's-80's. I would much rather live in a way that forces me to get my grill up when I walk down certain streets than one in which I spend enormous time and money keeping myself isolated and "safe" while commuting.

Posted by NS | July 9, 2008 1:22 PM

Elle loco got to the point first. But: this post is COMPLETE AND TOTAL BULLSHIT. Your "ice grill" does not make you invulnerable to bullets. Criminals prefer an easier mark, but they'll take any mark if they feel like it. And your mastery of hip-hop slang will not make it any easier on you if they feel like targeting you.

Even in high-crime areas, street crime is still a comparatively rare event, and it's easy to kid yourself that you're invulnerable if your number hasn't come up.

It is true that looking genuinely lost, uncomfortable, and unfamiliar with an area will make you more of a target for all kinds of hassles -- visit a strange city as a tourist, looking like a fish out of water, and you can easily find this happening to you. But anyone can be a target, and fear of crime in a truly violent city like DC is a legitimate concern. Minimizing it is silly.

Posted by mq | July 9, 2008 1:24 PM

Elle loco got to the point first. But: this post is COMPLETE AND TOTAL BULLSHIT. Your "ice grill" does not make you invulnerable to bullets. Criminals prefer an easier mark, but they'll take any mark if they feel like it. And your mastery of hip-hop slang will not make it any easier on you if they feel like targeting you.

Even in high-crime areas, street crime is still a comparatively rare event, and it's easy to kid yourself that you're invulnerable if your number hasn't come up.

It is true that looking genuinely lost, uncomfortable, and unfamiliar with an area will make you more of a target for all kinds of hassles -- visit a strange city as a tourist, looking like a fish out of water, and you can easily find this happening to you. But anyone can be a target, and fear of crime in a truly violent city like DC is a legitimate concern. Minimizing it is silly.

Posted by mq | July 9, 2008 1:25 PM

You got to school your children as the "fear of crime " must be learned. Me and my 4 year old daughter in the grocery store...the teenage bag boy is try to make small talk...my kid tells him she "does not talk to stangers and he must leave her alone". The bagger was crushed...and mommy was so proud.

Posted by jerri | July 9, 2008 1:41 PM

That bagger should have told your daughter she's a bitch. You are raising a bitch.

Posted by Jerri is a terrible mother... | July 9, 2008 1:47 PM

No one claimed your "ice grill" makes you invulnerable to bullets. You are missing the point. Not only do criminals "prefer an easier mark," but often times, its the only reason a crime is committed at all. If you don't look and act like a perfect victim, chances are, you won't be. That doesn't mean Ta-Nehisi was claiming to be invincible, and it doesn't mean he was minimizing it.

Posted by Scott | July 9, 2008 1:53 PM

I don't know -- fear of crime for keeping your wits about you? College in Hartford, time abroad in Rome, now live in Columbia Heights (gentrifying, but many parts are not quite there yet); I am well aware that looking straight ahead, not addressing hecklers, and looking like you mean business is the best way to avoid problems. Am I sometimes scared walking home at night? Occasionally. But it's not a constant state of fear.

I reserve that for my good friends who felt literally frightened in shady areas of town. Girls who feel like around every corners lurks someone who is ready to jump out and flash you or mug you, etc.

Posted by CHoward | July 9, 2008 2:21 PM

there's a huge difference between having on an "ice grill" and walking around just completely self-absorbed and clueless - and, believe me, I certainly see quite a bit of the latter on the streets of DC

Posted by Ethel-To-Tilly | July 9, 2008 2:29 PM

Okay, stubborn magic thinkers: What happens when your "ice grill" is taken by some other "ice grill" to be one big, ostentatious dis? (Hint: Blam, blam, in your face....) Happens every day--just another sad tale in the naked city.

Posted by elle loco | July 9, 2008 2:39 PM

elle loco, such stranger-on-stranger crimes are extremely rare. If you're going to be victimized by a stranger, it's probably because he wants your wallet.

Posted by Tyro | July 9, 2008 2:53 PM

Also, there is a big difference between looking like you can handle yourself, and mean-mugging someone.

Posted by Scott | July 9, 2008 3:01 PM

Does elle loco's knowledge of life on the hard streets extend beyond a few seasons of The Wire? Because it sure reads like ignorance on parade.

The closest I ever came to getting jumped, the near-jumpers apologized when they realized I was just some harmless white guy who happened to be in the neighborhood. Criminal fiends aren't sitting around looking to prey on overconfident passersby; they really have better things to do than to prove some sort of point by messing with someone who A. poses no threat and B. poses a challenge as a target.

Random crime happens, sure. But it happens less often than random car accidents. Decide for yourself whether defensive driving is identical to driving scared.

Posted by JRoth | July 9, 2008 3:35 PM

There sure are a lot of bulletproof tough guys who hang out on Matt's blog!

Okay, fine, but what about when you finally get married and have a kid and your wife is pushing a baby carriage down these mean streets?

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 9, 2008 3:50 PM

Ha ha ha! Funny. Everybody here. JRoth, you have no idea.

Now Sailer--so time to bail....

Posted by elle loco | July 9, 2008 3:57 PM

Elle Loco: No, you have no idea.

Interviews with incarcerated muggers have made it clear that the attitude of the victim is a factor in victim selection. This is a known fact to law enforcement.

Nobody is saying it guarantees that you won't get mugged, let alone be "invulnerable to bullets" which is a stupid remark, it's merely an odds enhancer.

Much better of course not to go to bad areas in the first place.

And Matt is wrong, except in the "duh" sense that any concern with security is "fear of crime". So what? Crime is a reality and modifying behavior to increase security is a rational response. Does Matt not use locks on his door? Does he lock his car? Is that "fear of crime"?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 9, 2008 4:40 PM

The total fertility rate for white women living in Washington D.C. is 1.1 babies per lifetime, or about half the replacement rate.

In other words, white people who remain living in D.C. are like the pandas in the National Zoo: they don't reproduce unless conditions are unusually ideal -- an expensive home solidly in the low-crime Northwest, enough income to afford St. Albans or another private school, and so forth and so on.

That's the bottom line and the rest is bluster.

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 9, 2008 4:46 PM

Attitude is not really a relevant factor if you walk into a bodega when a gunman is holding up the joint and you get blown away in a split second for your trouble. Or when an elevator door opens, and there stands a guy and a gal with two big knives, interested in your wallet. Or when you're walking briskly to a clearly menial job in service whites at midnight and five giggling teenagers jump you and hold a gun to your ear. Or when you're walking out of a Rite-Aid and three guys with shotguns push you back in, lock the door, loot the registers, rape you and a couple other women in the aisle, and take off. I have intimate knowledge of each of these occurrences (one of them happened to me, the others to friends). But I guess I have no idea. Huh.

Posted by elle loco | July 9, 2008 4:52 PM

Re: You got to school your children as the "fear of crime " must be learned. Me and my 4 year old daughter in the grocery store...the teenage bag boy is try to make small talk...my kid tells him she "does not talk to stangers and he must leave her alone". The bagger was crushed...and mommy was so proud.

Jerri, you're on track to raise an antisocial little jerk there. And the first thing you need to "school" your child in is proper English grammar, which you don't seem to know much about.

Posted by Hector | July 9, 2008 5:31 PM

Re: You got to school your children as the "fear of crime " must be learned. Me and my 4 year old daughter in the grocery store...the teenage bag boy is try to make small talk...my kid tells him she "does not talk to stangers and he must leave her alone". The bagger was crushed...and mommy was so proud.

Jerri, you're on track to raise an antisocial little jerk there. And the first thing you need to "school" your child in is proper English grammar, which you don't seem to know much about.

Posted by Hector | July 9, 2008 5:33 PM

Oy...clooosssing time......

Posted by elle loco | July 9, 2008 5:36 PM

elle loco,
You're a woman. Of course the rules are different for a woman. Please be serious.

Posted by Scott | July 9, 2008 5:59 PM

Scott, a) I plead the fifth on my gender assignment; b) three of the four incidents I related happened to men.

Wow, this is really one of those stoopid-making threads Matt gets tangled in--like all the ones about work/life balance and women's issues....

Posted by elle loco | July 9, 2008 6:33 PM

Elle Loco: And only two of the situations you mention are relevant to street muggings - the "giggling teenagers" one and the "elevator" one - and the elevator one really is far rarer than a street mugging. And since it doesn't happen in the street, it's irrelevant to the "street attitude" issue, by definition.

The other two are straight armed robberies of public access facilities - that's an entirely different situation. Armed robbers are an entirely different breed than street muggers, for the most part.

Stop trying so hard, you're not succeeding in proving that "street attitude" is not a factor in mugging prevention. It is. The cops know it, the criminologists know it, and anybody who walks in bad areas knows it (or should).

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 9, 2008 7:04 PM

All the macho bluster here about how only stupid people get mugged or get shot while they are being mugged reminds me of when I was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1996. Nonsmokers would ask my wife if I smoked -- because then it would be my own fault I got cancer, which means that _they_ would never get cancer (and, if they played their cards right, maybe they'd never die at all). When she told them I didn't smoke, they would go away looking worried. And the smokers would go away looking relieved.

All you can do in this world is play the odds.

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 9, 2008 8:21 PM

Okay, Sailer: You get one. PERFECT metaphor.

Hack, I'm not saying that attitude (and, actually, attentiveness more importantly) won't help you not get mugged. I'm saying that Coates et al. are tripping if they think that it will save you from dangerous urban environments where shit happens pretty much anytime, all the time. It's kind of a Buddhistic realization, actually: Mindfulness is praxis, but the world is a house on fire, and good luck in it....

Posted by elle loco | July 9, 2008 9:23 PM

Of course it's fear. Fear isn't just a feeling, it's an attitude and it's expressed in behavior. You might as well say that someone who never goes outside so he won't get wet isn't afraid of the rain. After all, he's got a roof, right?

Posted by SqueakyRat | July 9, 2008 11:36 PM

What Coates said in the quoted passage was that if you have attitude and pay attention, the odds of being mugged are pretty low. Statistically, he might be right, he might be wrong, but the point is sound - your odds improve.

He said nothing about it protecting you from "dangerous urban environments where shit happens all the time." That was your interpretation.

You disagreed. You said attitude is not relevant. The results are in. You lost.

Next time, try not overstating your case in hyperbolic terms. You'll get farther.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 9, 2008 11:50 PM

pull out your cell and call a friend if necessary as you walk somewhere questionable.

In a dodgy area of town over here, this is a terrific way to get your cell stolen while you're distracted and your hearing is impaired.

Posted by ajay | July 10, 2008 5:07 AM

Hack, if you don't savvy my original point about magic thinking, which is palpable throughout this lamentable thread, then go with god, brother....

Posted by elle loco | July 10, 2008 8:04 AM