High School Youth's Fear of Crime in Turkey

All individuals have potential to commit a crime in modern society. When we think about that everyone also has potential to be a victim of that particular crime. In this context, it could be expected that individuals can be afraid in their everyday lives with the increased media coverage and information opportunities.  Thus the term, “fear of crime” defined and while there have been plenty of studies done on the topic; its emergence and studies on the Turkish society is relatively new. In this study high school students’, aged 15 to 18 and mostly neglected in previous studies, fear of crime are investigated. The study tries to explain the relation of different perspectives and how they affect fear of high school youth.  Both individual variables and social variables are examined. The most important variable that affects youth’s fear is identified as gender. Female students reported higher fear of crime levels than males with pointing the origin of their fear is media. While media is also the origin of the most male students’ fear, being in a high crime rated neighborhood came as second origin differing from their female counterparts.  Also most feared crime types, taking precautions for not to be a victim of a crime, the crime types that’s been affected most when seen or listened from media etc. differs between both groups. Explanations about causes of this situation and recommendations were made about how to reduce this fear difference between both groups and what type of policies are needed for the  future generations.