Crime control, citizenship and the state: lay understandings of crime, its causes and solutions

Abstract

Recent policies in Western countries have emphasised the notion of personal responsibility in crime control, drawing attention away from the role of government agencies in dealing with crime. This article explores how this approach to crime control has been taken up in lay ideas about the causes of and solutions to crime. Drawing on a major empirical study on fear of crime among a group of Australians living in urban and rural areas, it is argued that the discourse of personal responsibility was indeed evident in lay accounts. However, the participants also resisted the notion that the state should relinquish paternal protection of its citizens and direct intervention into crime. Their understandings of crime located it within a wider causal network that incorporated ideas about the role of social institutions, welfare and the state in preventing crime.