THE CONCEPTUALISATION OF ‘THE FEAR OF CRIME’ AMONG STUDENTS IN A PERI-URBAN UNIVERSITY IN KENYA

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.