Fear of Crime, Affect, and the Aesthetics of Everyday Space: Why Sensory Experience Shapes Worry About Victimization

Fear of crime is rarely a rational calculation. It does not begin with a risk statistic or a news headline. It begins earlier, in the pre-conscious body’s response to a poorly lit footpath, the sonic landscape of an empty train carriage, the smell of a stairwell, or the sight of a blocked exit. These everyday aesthetic encounters with space and place produce affect, a pre-personal, pre-emotional response, that then generates the worry, anxiety, and behavioral modification that researchers identi