Abstract
Fear of crime is one of the most popular topics to which criminal justice
scholars, police officers, and government workers have long paid attention. This
study focuses on factors affecting fear of crime that have not often been examined
in previous research, namely, police performance in crime suppression and crime
prevention, and adds interaction terms in the same fear-of-crime model.
Data from a country-wide survey on fear of crime in Thailand in 2010 were
analyzed at two levels: individual and aggregate. At the individual level, the data
were derived from 6,080 questionnaires, while aggregate level data were based
on a sample of 76. A Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) was used to identify and
statistically analyze the factors related to the fear of crime among Thai people.
The findings reveal that not only do facilitators of fear of crime show
significant relationships with fear, but inhibitors of fear of crime and the interaction
terms are also significantly related to fear. Implications derived from the findings
as well as further research are also suggested.
Keywords: Facilitators and inhibitors of fear of crime, Thailand, hierarchical linear
model (HLM), crime prevention, crime suppression