Blog 19: Article 2

Today I read the article, "Explaining Fear of Crime as Fear of Rape Among College Females: An Examination of Multiple Campuses in the United States." The article talked about both men and women. For their research they circulated a survey to three, four year universities in different regions of the United States. The survey measured, on a scale of one to ten, how afraid the students were of being victims of certain crimes. The results are well documented in organized charts. The article also has information from past studies. It is a convenient source that not only has current information, but information from the past which will allow me to do a little comparing and contrasting.

One of the interesting findings from the article is that women fear crime more so than men. However, men are more likely to be the victim of a crime. The article suggests that women’s higher overall fear of being a victim of crime is because they feel it could lead to rape. Therefore, fear of crime could be described as fear of rape. The end of article talks about policies and programs that have been implemented on college campuses across the nation in an attempt to make them safer.

This article relates to my paper very well. There is a lot of information that I will be able to pull from the article itself as well as the charts. Not only does the article discuss both men and women, but I also like the fact that they are college students. Another good thing about the article is that it discusses multiple crimes and talks about statistics from other well known studies that have been conducted in the past.

Dobbs, Rhonda R., Courtney A. Waid, and Tara O'Connor Shelley. "Explaining Fear of Crime as Fear of Rape Among College Females: An Examination of Multiple Campuses in the United States." International Journal of Social Inquiry 2.2 (2009): 105-122. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 22 Jan. 2011.