Journal of the Korean Geographical Society ISSN:1225-6633(Print) 대한지리학회지

This paper aims to analyze fear of crime which is considered socio-psychologically important in our daily lives from a geographical point of view. Especially, the spatial patterns of the fear of crime which were analyzed in the area of Youngtong in Suwon city. First, this paper takes a look at the correlation between the incidence of crime and the fear of crime. Most people feel fear in actual crime scenes, but they do not always coincide with place where people feel the high level of fear. Fear of crime is closely connected with physical environments as well as the incidence of crime. The level of fear is high in places where the light is dark, unfrequented paths, especially in parks and around mountains. Several factors which have effects on fear of crime operate differently upon place. Second, a survey which measures the fear of crime was quantitatively analyzed. Factor analysis was employed to find out whether questions are appropriate for measuring the fear of crime as well as to reduce the amount of data so that more exact result can be derived from the data. Through the factor analysis, seven factors were extracted and it is found that a factor of incivility accounts for 24.032% of variance. Other factors which affect fear of crime are community cohesion, warning, incidence of crime, victimization, morality and authority.