Researching fear of violent crime: protecting victims

Imagine you are conducting research that explores whether fear of violent crime is greater in elderly people living alone in rural areas than it is in those living in urban areas. Selected participants across twenty different areas are sent questionnaires with an accompanying letter that sets out the purpose of the study.

You receive a telephone call from an elderly lady, Maggie, who has received your questionnaire. She tells you that she had not realised that her village was at risk of crime. She reports that she is afraid to go out to collect her pension in case she is mugged (there were some questions about mugging on the questionnaire). Several days later, you receive an email from a Police Liaison Officer attached to the Community Centre in Maggie’s village. He tells you that Maggie has called the police 17 times in the past three days because she thought she heard an intruder in her home.

What could you have done differently to avoid this situation?

It would be easy to contemplate two possible responses to your questionnaire. Firstly, you may be concerned that recipients will decide that it is too much trouble to complete the questionnaire and put it straight in the bin. Alternatively, you imagine that people will complete the questionnaire, understanding that it is research about fear of crime not actual crime and that they will give reasonable and objective responses. However, it is essential that you remember that people are individuals with all sorts of different backgrounds and experiences so their response to receiving the questionnaire may be something entirely different to that which you would have expected. Try to put yourself in the position of your target participant: an elderly person who does not have your experience in studying crime and criminals. They might wonder why they are being asked about crime unless it is a threat to them. It might raise their awareness of their vulnerability in a way that had not previously occurred to them. In essence, there is a clear risk that a research participant could be frightened as a result of receiving your questionnaire. This is a risk that could have been anticipated.

One way in which this situation could have been avoided if the risk had been anticipated would have been to use a different method of data collection. If you had used interviews to collect data rather than questionnaires, the personal contact involved would have enabled you to see if participants were becoming frightened about crime and to be able to reassure them. Sensitive matters are sometimes better addressed in person than by distant methods of data collection. Of course, this has to be balanced against the cost (in time and money) of each method.

A further possibility would have been to have given greater emphasis to the focus of the research on fear of crime rather than the actual occurrence of crime. It is always important to ensure that as much information as possible is given to research participants to enable them to understand the nature of the research. It is, however, always possible that Maggie would have reacted in the same way even if this had occurred.

Can you do anything to resolve it now that it has arisen?

There are two considerations here. One is to deal with Maggie’s anxiety and the other is to ensure that no other participants have been similarly affected by the questionnaire. The latter is quite straightforward. A telephone call could be made to all participants (provided that you have their telephone numbers) to check that they have understood the questionnaire and to invite them to raise any questions or concerns that they might have with you. Alternatively, a further letter could be sent that thanks them for their participation and reminds them that they can contact you. You could even address the matter directly by pointing out that the research was concerned with fear of crime and asking if they feel more fearful as a result of taking part. You could then offer some sort of targeted support for this.

The situation with Maggie is rather more complex. A sensible starting point would be to contact her, by telephone or in person rather than by email or letter, and discuss her concerns with a view to reassuring her that she is no more at risk of crime now than she was before she received the questionnaire. You could emphasise the low crime rate in her locality and perhaps enlist the support of the Police Liaison Officer with this. There may be some statistics on crime in her area that you could use to reassure her (obviously making sure that it is sufficiently low to do this as you do not want to make her even more anxious). Perhaps, with her permission, there are some friends and family who could be involved to support her and to help to calm her down.

In any research that has the potential to cause an adverse reaction in participants, you should always identify in advance a range of support resources that you can publicise to participants in case they have any concerns. You could suggest that Maggie makes use of the services that you identified as they may be better placed to reassure her. It is also possible that a more senior person in the university could intervene.