Jon Bannister

Bio: Jon Bannister is an academic researcher from Manchester Metropolitan University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Fear of crime & Poison control. The author has an hindex of 25, co-authored 72 publications receiving 2357 citations. Previous affiliations of Jon Bannister include University of Glasgow & University of Birmingham.

QUESTIONING THE MEASUREMENT OF THE ‘FEAR OF CRIME’: Findings from a Major Methodological Study

Abstract: Research upon the fear of crime has grown substantially in recent years. From its very inception, this field has relied almost exclusively upon quantitative surveys, which have suggested that the fear of crime is a prevalent social problem. However, doubts about the nature of the instruments used to investigate this phenomenon have cumulatively raised the possibility that the fear of crime has been significantly misrepresented. Dealing with the epistemological, conceptual, operational and technical critiques of quantitative surveys in general and of fear of crime surveys in particular, this article suggests that our understanding of the fear of crime is a product of the way it has been researched rather than the way it is. As the aim of the research project under which this data was collected was to develop and design new quantitative questions, the article ends with some possible solutions to the epistemological, conceptual, operational and technical problems discussed which may improve future quantitative research in this field.

WOMEN AND THE ‘FEAR OF CRIME’Challenging the Accepted Stereotype

Abstract: Professional empirically generated survey data about the fear of crime persistently indicate relatively small but statistically significant differences between fear rates expressed by men and women. Such differences are contrasted with objective crime victimization risk ratios; regularly magnified by amateur surveys; and have been ossified as stereotypes by the media. Subsequently, all women are believed to be fearful of crime; and all men fearless. The research reported herein encountered, paradoxically, fearful men and fearless women. A dissection of their qualitatively garnered feelings indicates, in a very provisional way, the general conditions under which crime-related fears are reduced and enhanced.

Introduction : Fear and the City:

Abstract: The urban studies literature is infused with the image of the city as a celebration of difference, as a medium through which the totality of modern living is co-joined and given meaning. However, this vision of the city, of its public places and streets providing an arena in which to experience and learn from diversity (Sennett, 1996), is under threat. Alternative images which depict the city as an unruly, unsettling and disorderly place are increasingly dominant. Difference is now seen as overwhelming and dangerous, to be excluded or segregated where possible—indeed, something to be afraid of. Crime and the fear of crime appear to have been integral to this change. The latter half of the 20th century witnessed crime rates soar in many urban centres. Further, the fear of crime, which received scant attention until the 1980s, is now recognised as a more widespread problem than crime itself (Hale, 1996). Together, crime and the fear of crime have been seen to blight urban life, attacking the economic, social and political fabric of cities. Seemingly, crime and the fear of crime have drained cities of their vital essence: the celebration of difference. These observations raise numerous questions. What is the nature of fear? Is fear a product of the criminogenic conditions which appear to have  ourished in urban environments? Or, is fear more broadly allied to city-dwelling, a metaphor for the quality of urban life? In what ways has fear impacted upon the economic, social and political environments of the city? How has the city responded to the challenge posed by widespread anxiety and urban disorder? Ultimately, is it possible to reconcile the con icting images of the city as a celebration of difference and as an arena in which difference is to be feared?

“City Watching: Closed Circuit Television Surveillance in Public Spaces” : from Area (1995)

Abstract: People are now rarely free from the electronic gaze of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras. Routine activities are all captured by an elaborate network of cameras which now seem as much part of the urban infrastructure as traffic-lights or post-boxes. This chapter argues that the rapid and spectacular diffusion of CCTV surveillance technology into urban public space is highly controversial. Employing CCTV in public spaces raises important theoretical questions about the relationships between civil society and the state. In terms of effectiveness, the chapter questions the dramatic claims made for CCTV in reducing crime. Although some “before” and “after” CCTV studies show sharp falls in crime, the many methodological difficulties involved in accurately measuring crime mean that the results of such studies need to be interpreted cautiously. Glasgow provides an instructive example of the role of local political and economic interests in the development of a city centre CCTV system and the attempted resolution of these public-private tensions.

Afraid or Angry? Recalibrating the ‘fear’ of Crime

Abstract: Studying the fear of crime is a research field that has grown enormously in the past two decades. Yet our empirical knowledge has grown at the expense of conceptual development. It is beginning to be suspected that ‘fear’ is a term encompassing a confusing variety of feelings, perspectives, risk-estimations, and which thus means different things to different people. It is additionally suggested that what we know empirically may well be largely an artefact of the fact that the questions that are put repeatedly to respondents seldom vary, and the ways that those questions are put, and the settings in which they are put seldom change. The research project which is in part reported here initially used one set of respondents to develop new questions relating to their general and specific feelings about criminal victimisation, before testing them on another, much larger sample. This latter exercise confirmed that being ‘angry’ about the threat of criminal victimisation is more frequently reported than being ‘af...

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

Abstract: The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

What is Narrative Analysis

Abstract: Recording of presentation introducing narrative analysis, outlining what it is, why it can be a useful approach, how to do it and where to find out more. Presentation given at methods@manchester seminar at University of Manchester on 4 March 2010.

Urban Outcasts: A comparative sociology of advanced marginality

Abstract: Breaking with the exoticizing cast of public discourse and conventional research, Urban Outcasts takes the reader inside the black ghetto of Chicago and the deindustrializing banlieue of Paris to discover that urban marginality is not everywhere the same. Drawing on a wealth of original field, survey and historical data, Loïc Wacquant shows that the involution of America's urban core after the 1960s is due not to the emergence of an 'underclass', but to the joint withdrawal of market and state fostered by public policies of racial separation and urban abandonment. In European cities, by contrast, the spread of districts of 'exclusion' does not herald the formation of ghettos. It stems from the decomposition of working-class territories under the press of mass unemployment, the casualization of work and the ethnic mixing of populations hitherto segregated, spawning urban formations akin to 'anti-ghettos'.

Surveillance Studies: An Overview

Abstract: * Contents * Preface and Acknowledgments * Introduction * Part I Viewpoints *1. The Watched World Today *2. Spreading Surveillance Sites *3. Explaining Surveillance * Part II Vision *4. Information, Identification, Inventory *5. Security, Suspicion, Social Sorting *6. Bodies, Borders, Biometrics * Part III Visibility *7. Surveillance, Visibility and Popular Culture *8. Struggles over Surveillance *9. Data, Discrimination, Dignity * Glossary * Further Reading * Bibliography * Index