Report by T.FELTES Germany

Over the past few years, increasing importance has been attached to the subject of public security in public places, in the streets and open spaces and particularly at stations, bus stops and any other places where people come into contact with strangers. Inspired by developments in New York and the “zero-tolerance” strategy followed there, urban and district authorities have begun to pay particular attention not only to public security but also to what is referred to as the “subjective sense of security”, marred by the often groundless but all too common subjective fears and anxieties of citizens. Empirical studies in this field have shown that there is usually no correlation between the crimes reported in surveys (by the victims themselves), police records of crime and individuals’ subjective sense of security. In the case of Germany, for example, it has been possible to show that there is no connection between the levels of criminality in a city, region or federal state and the fear of crime and subjective sense of security revealed by surveys...