jane
Well-Known Member
It's also not so much a matter of recorded crimes, it's other aspects of the atmosphere of a city or area of a city. I mean, someone telling you they're gonna bate you would not be recorded as a crime (even though technically it is, the gardai barely turn up as it is, and certainly wouldn't respond to a report of a threat). A sense of ill-content or impending violence can make a place feel dangerous and thus probably increase the risks of actual violence taking place.
So a city might have a really low crime rate, but also have a general vibe of random violence, and make it feel like you're more likely to get a kicking. Not that I think gang crime is an acceptable risk or whatever, but it's at least somewhat avoidable for those who are not in gangs.
Random violence -- even as a threat -- is much scarier because you can't really control for it. It's not about you or how you provoked someone: they were out for blood anyway. I'm still freaked half the time by the two times in recent years that I was attacked, and it doesn't take much -- only a tiny threat of danger -- to send me into a blind panic, even though I was really only injured in one of them, and even then it could have been much, much worse.
I imagine that one random attack would be a much larger contributor to the sense of danger than, say, a domestic attack -- which, let's not forget, is where the risk of violence is greatest for women and children. Women are more likely the be victims of violence, but men are more likely to be on the receiving end of a violent assault in the street. I dunno where I read that. I'm probably fudging it a bit.
Probably Manhattan has a higher crime rate overall, but it certainly doesn't feel anywhere near as scary as O'Connell Street on a good day.
Our subjective experiences of feeling safe/unsafe in places should be taken into account along with official stats. I wonder who/where has done research on the way that the perception of danger/safety contributes to actual crime rates? I'm sure it's been done.
So a city might have a really low crime rate, but also have a general vibe of random violence, and make it feel like you're more likely to get a kicking. Not that I think gang crime is an acceptable risk or whatever, but it's at least somewhat avoidable for those who are not in gangs.
Random violence -- even as a threat -- is much scarier because you can't really control for it. It's not about you or how you provoked someone: they were out for blood anyway. I'm still freaked half the time by the two times in recent years that I was attacked, and it doesn't take much -- only a tiny threat of danger -- to send me into a blind panic, even though I was really only injured in one of them, and even then it could have been much, much worse.
I imagine that one random attack would be a much larger contributor to the sense of danger than, say, a domestic attack -- which, let's not forget, is where the risk of violence is greatest for women and children. Women are more likely the be victims of violence, but men are more likely to be on the receiving end of a violent assault in the street. I dunno where I read that. I'm probably fudging it a bit.
Probably Manhattan has a higher crime rate overall, but it certainly doesn't feel anywhere near as scary as O'Connell Street on a good day.
Our subjective experiences of feeling safe/unsafe in places should be taken into account along with official stats. I wonder who/where has done research on the way that the perception of danger/safety contributes to actual crime rates? I'm sure it's been done.
