Abstract:
In Kenya, research on the prevalence and intensity of the fear of crime among university
students is limited, and the fear of crime in general is not regarded as an objective of the
Kenyan Police Service. Moreover, past research on the fear of crime has been plagued by
methodological challenges regarding the conceptualisation and measurement of the ‘fear of
crime’ concept. In addition, although fear of crime and perceived risk are conceptually
different, scholars often deploy risk-based measures as a surrogate for the fear of crime, to the
extent that estimates of the fear of crime, could be misleading. The research approach is
quantitative and employed a survey research design. While using emotional-based measures
of fear of crime, this exploratory and descriptive study reports on the prevalence and intensity
of the fear of crime amongst students enrolled at Masinde Muliro University of Science and
Technology (MMUST), a peri-urban university, located in the west of Kenya. More
significantly, the study also explores whether the risk of crime and the fear of crime are
empirically different.
