MARGIN H2020

2015

Tackle Insecurity in Marginalized Areas

This project provides policy-makers with evidence-based tools for developing and assessing strategies targeted at the reduction of insecurity among different demographic and socioeconomic groups.

The research aims at analysing perceptions of insecurity and the fear of crime and its consequences for social cohesion and informal social control. The study is based on data collected by means of the triangulation of qualitative techniques (in-depth interviews, participant observation, semi-structured focus groups) in eight neighbourhoods in four European cities.

The challenge was to conduct a comparative analysis of qualitative data from different contexts. We use instruments in four languages (for in-depth interviews, participant observation, focus groups) and organize a training week for all European fieldworkers. The Delphi method was employed in order to achieve a consensus between different expert stakeholders (e.g. police representatives, researchers, etc.) to select the items for a new original international survey to measure perceptions of insecurity in Italy, Spain, France, Hungary and the UK (CATI).

The results obtained show that, under certain circumstances, the fear of crime might foster genuine forms of social involvement and problem-solving participation. Nevertheless, the results of fieldwork carried out in only six months in four European cities indicate that crime-related anxieties are fuelling the emergence of nostalgic, passive-aggressive and violent forms of identity, which might promote potentially dangerous types of collective action.