범죄의 두려움에 드리워진 성폭력의 그림자

The Shadow of Sexual Assault on the fear of crime

This study analyzes the effects of sexual-assaults victimization on the fear of sexual assaults and the effects of the fear of sexual-assaults victimization on the fear of the other crimes. The former is about a controversial issue whether the fear of crime is 'rational fear' that due to a real victimization, or not 'the general feeling of malaise' that is due to a personal vulnerability or helplessness. The latter is about a test on "the shadow of sexual assault hypothesis"(Ferraro, 1996) that the victimization of sexual assaults have the strongest effect on the fear of the other crimes victimizations, because the victimization of sexual assaults has a 'master status' of various personal crime victimizations. Analysis on the data acquired by face-to-face interviews on college students( N=1,004) shows that, first, not only the direct victimization of sexual assault increase the fear of sexual assault, but also some variables like sex or age have a strong effect on the fear of crime. This can be interpreted that the fear of crime is due to a malaise. This results support partially all both perspectives. Second, the fear of sexual assault was the more important factor which has a strong effect on the fear of the other crimes. The shadow of sexual assault made college students feel the more fear about the other crimes. In addition, when the fear of sexual assault was controled, the effects of sex on the fear of crime was statistically not significant or very weak. This result supports Warr(1984; 1985)'s proposition and also very strongly support Ferraro(1996)'s the shadow of sexual assault hypothesis.