Fear of Crime in Residential Areas

Abstract

Physical environmental elements such as gated elements are believed    to have an effect towards the reduction of fear of crime in residential neighbourhoods. In Malaysia, the typical form of residences is that involving gated individual houses, while residences without gated elements are relatively a new development concept. Therefore, a survey on fear of crime among residents in housing areas with gated and non-gated residences was conducted in Bandar Baru Bangi, Selangor and Precinct 9B, Putrajaya. This research discovered that respondents inhabiting a gated residential area exhibit a higher fear of crime level (M=5.84, SD=1.23) when compared to respondents living in a non-gated residential area (M=3.85, SD=1.66).

Keywords: Crime, fear of crime, gated and non-gated residential areas, confirmatory factor analysis

eISSN 2514-751X © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.