Fear of Crime Among Arab Americans in a Culture of Fear

• NCJ Number: 255272
• Journal: Ethnic and Racial Studies Volume: 40 Issue: 14 Dated: 2017 Pages: 2481-2500
• Date Published: 2017
• Author(s): Yuning N. Wu; Charlesl F. Klahm Iv; Nada Atoui
• Length: 20 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2013-IJ-CX-0020
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

This study investigated Arab Americans' fear of crime, using five empirically validated fear-of-crime theoretical models.

Abstract

Although they are the minority group frequently at the center of public fear in the post-9/11 era, Arab Americans' own sentiment toward and concerns with crime has eluded scholarly attention. The current study conducted face-to-face interviews with a random sample of Arab and non-Arab households in Metro-Detroit, Michigan. Findings indicated that net of all controls, Arab Americans experienced significantly higher levels of fear concerning both general and bias crimes than non-Arab Americans. The greater fear among Arab Americans calls for policy and practice change and moving from perceiving Arab Americans as a major "source" of fear to "carriers" of fear, who need more attention, care, and assistance. (publisher abstract modified)