Fear of crime: Who is most vulnerable?

This study investigates the relationship of demographic, psychosocial, and crime-related factors to fear of crime. Data were collected from 1,499 respondents to a national public opinion survey. A discriminant analysis was used to determine those factors which contribute most to respondents' fear of crime. Overall, 12 variables were found to explain 45.7 percent of the variance in fear of crime. Demographic variables such as sex, the size of the place where the respondent lives, age, marital status, and the number of persons living with the respondent were the most important variables discriminating between fearful and nonfearful respondents. Psychosocial and crime-related variables were found to be less important than demographic variables in discriminating between fearful and nonfearful respondents.     

The susceptibility of child witnesses to suggestion

This article deals with the reliability of child witnesses, in particular from the viewpoint that child witnesses should be treated with suspicion because their memories are very susceptible to suggestion. An experiment is reported, in which grade 3, grade 6, and college students were compared on their ability to recall events from a film, in the face of (mis)leading questions from an interrogator. The data showed that the grade 6 students were equal to the college students in memory capacity and in their ability to resist suggestion. The grade 3 students were inferior to the older subjects in these areas. However, the results from a second testing session led to the conclusion that although the younger children appeared to submit to suggestion much more readily than the older subjects, the effect of suggestion on actual memory was not significantly different for the three subject-groups. The implications of these findings are discussed with reference to the present status of child witnesses in Anglo-Saxon law systems.     

THE BOOKSHELF

The Therapeutic Triangle by Carlfred B. Broderick
People In Crisis: Strategic Therapeutic Interventions by Diana Sullivan Everstine & Larris Everstine