Kraiwin Wattanasin. Fear of crime among people in Klong Toey Slum . Doctoral Degree(Criminology, Justice Administration and Society). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2003.
Abstract:
The objective of the study is to find out the level of fear and factors affecting the
level of fear among people in Klong Toey Slum. The researcher used questionnaires to collect
data from 345 samples who are the household leaders living in Klong Toey Slum Log 1-2-3,
then used in-depth interview with the 20 household leaders. For data analysis, the percentage,
arithmetic mean and standard deviation were used to describe the characteristics of samples,
and the Correlation and Multiple Regression Analysis were used to study the relationships
between variables and to study the dependent variable accounted for by independent variables.
It was found that fear of crime among the people in Klong Toey Slum was at the
moderate level. Crimes that people had the highest level of fear of were negligently caused
fires, arson, and robbery respectively. The findings derived from the Multiple Regression
analysis indicated that 6 variables i.e. perceived risk of victimization, sex, direct-experience of
being victimized by a crime, perception of community environment and attitude towards
police performance contributed significantly to the prediction of fear of crime. The behavior
that most of the people usually exhibited when they were in fear of crime was avoidance
followed by participation and the third and fourth most commonly occurring behaviors were
protective and friend-making behaviors. There was a moderate level of avoidance and
protective behavior and a low level of participation and friend-making behavior. Finally, the
policy implications derived from the research indicated that the Community Policing
Approach, changing police attitudes toward the residents in the community and the
development of a drug-prevention program should be applied in the slum area in order to
reduce the fear of crime.