Research into the fear of crime has almost exclusively focused on personal fear of crime. Very few studies have examined people's fear of crime as it relates to the safety or wellbeing of others, i.e. altruistic fear. In the few studies that have been conducted in this area, the findings indicate that people spend more time experiencing altruistic fear than personal fear. In this sense, altruistic fear may be considered more of a problem than personal fear. The objective of the present study is that of investigating the concern that a number of interview subjects feel for relatives and friends. The study is based on 20 in-depth interviews and eight pilot interviews conducted with men and women who live in Stockholm, Sweden. The interviewees describe how the worst thing they can imagine is their children or partners being subjected to crime. As a consequence of these fears, the interview subjects warn those who are close to them of the dangers of crime. Their altruistic fear can be understood as a reaction to situations that are unknown and difficult to control, since the interviewees do not know what might happen to the friends and relatives concerned. The focus of altruistic concerns seems to shift through the life course and there thus appears to be a life cycle effect on altruistic fear of crime. It is also possible that altruistic fear, like personal fear, constitutes an expression of the anxiety people feel about living in a risk society.
In the crime policy field, the crime victim is usually described as the direct opposite of the offender in terms of characteristics and needs. This article analyses crime policy descriptions of crime victims and offenders, with a special focus on how politicians address the issue of the victimoffender overlap. The material comprises a sample of legislative crime policy bills submitted by members of the Swedish parliament during 2005-10. In the bills, crime victims are described as good, innocent and in need of help, whereas the offender is seen as a bad, ruthless scoundrel. In between stands a group of victim-offenders; pitiable poor things. However, when responses to offenders are discussed, both poor things and scoundrels are to be punished severely.
The serious drug and drug smuggling offenders active in Stockholm are linked by means of co-offending to other persons in large criminal networks. Within these networks, the individuals have large numbers of superficial and transient contacts with one another. It appears to be particularly important to have contacts with other drug offenders throughout Sweden, and particularly in the Skåne region. The majority of the convicted drug offenders have a Nordic background. The study indicates that dealers in the Stockholm area know drug smugglers in Sweden's metropolitan areas. In their turn, the drug smugglers in the metropolitan areas have contacts with persons involved in the smuggling of other goods primarily in the county of Skåne. A large proportion of the persons included in the data set were suspected of committing drug offences and appear to be focused to some extent on drug offending and on offences involving one or two illicit substances. They also engage in other types of criminal activity to a large extent, however, and are thus not exclusively specialised in drug offending. Persons involved in serious drug crime, including drug smuggling, are often males in their thirties. These individuals often choose other males as co-offenders. It is generally common to commit drug offences together with co-offenders and the most criminally active individuals are also those with the largest numbers of co-offenders. The co-offending partnerships that commit drug offences are not particularly durable over time, however, and it is unusual for drug offenders to restrict themselves to committing offences with one and the same co-offender.
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