FEAR OF CRIME IN RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITIES

Three variables were hypothesized to cause a fear of crime and a potential change in behavior. These were: (1) crimes against a person rather than crimes against property; (2) a crime committed in an area frequented rather than a crime occurring in an area one never entered; (3) a recurring crime rather than a crime that occurred once. Two different samples of female subjects (n = 249) were approached at their residences and were asked to read one of a number of fictitious crime stories that the news media supposedly had not reported and to complete two scales measuring: (1) an emotional response to crime and (2) a potential behavioral response to crime. The results indicate that a physical assault produces both more fear and more potential behavioral change than a burglary. A crime that occurs eight times causes people to consider taking precautions in comparison to a crime that occurs once. There is some evidence that a crime in an area one frequents causes more fear than a crime occurring in an area one never enters.     

Attitudes Toward Pornography in a Southern Community

The Supreme Court has determined that obscene speech should not be protected under the First Amendment, but an unambiguous definition of obscenity is required if negative legal sanctions are to be enforced without jeopardizing due process. According to current guidelines, a media presentation of sexually explicit materials must exceed limits of sexual candor to be defined obscene. However, establishing such limits requires articulation of a normative standard for a specified population—a population defined by the court as being a community. The present research is designed to identify such limits of sexual candor within a community in the South. The results demonstrate the existence of ambiguity in the articulation of community standards. First, little consistency is found between personal standards and the perceptions of community standards. This lack of consistency presents a problem for jury deliberation since a single frame of reference is not available to guide jurors in reaching decisions on obscenity. Second, both perceptions of community standards and personal standards are significantly influenced by extracommunity factors of sex, age, race, education, religiosity, and moral rigidity. Existence of such effects raises the additional question of jury bias in the event that there is an overrepresentation of any one segment of the community on a jury.