I have no problem when i go outside my front door, i have lived in woolwich all my life and i can say i have never once had any problems with anyone in the area. It my be because i am lucky or it could be that i just go about my business and dont get involved with anyone and treat everyone with the respect that they are all due.

Put another way, does anyone not know anyone else, that has not been affected by crime?

I WORK NEAR WEMBLEY AND TRAVEL LATE AT NIGHT ON SOME SHIFTS. I AM NO MUG BUT DONT CARRY MONEY,JEWELLERY OR CARDS SO IF SOME LITTLE GOBSH*TE WITH A KNIFE MUGS ME HE CAN TAKE ALL THE REPLACEABLE STUFF HE WANTS AND I WILL GET HOME SAFE TO MY KIDS. IN SOME PARTS OF LONDON WHICH I TRAVEL THROUGH THERE ARE SO MANY SCUMMERS HANGING AROUND. IT IS DEFINATELY WORSE THAN WHEN I WAS YOUNG, OR AM I TURNING INTO MY PARENTS?

The 'fear of crime' is an abstract idea, an evocative and polysemic notion, frequently used yet very difficult to define precisely. It is used in conversation and public debate to condense a number of inter-related social and political concerns - yet it fails to fully capture the detail. Fear of crime research is a crucial cog in the fear of crime 'business', which includes sensational mass media coverage and high profile popular punitive political rhetoric from our politicians. This business encourages the sense among the public that crime is a bigger problem than it really is and that many people are worried about crime. This, in turn, increases the tendency for people to use dramatic metaphors of 'crime', to make sense of things like disorder and community conditions.

The fear of crime is a creature of the last 30 years and a whole industry has been constructed around it, attempting to measure it, explain it, discuss it and tackle it.

There are a number of contributing factors to fear of crime being out of all proportion to the reality:

Firstly, I suspect that the incidence of the fear of crime has actually been exaggerated via survey research - the very act of being surveyed about their feelings concerning crime, if not creating these feelings, certainly seems to be exaggerating them. I'm not suggesting that people are never fearful or worried; rather these emotions are fleeting events in otherwise fear-of-crime-free lives.

Some people may find it difficult to articulate or pinpoint their emotions and may thus encompass vague insecurities about a range of social conditions.

Exaggerations will also occur because people will recall the most vivid and threatening recent experience, inferring their intensity to be representative of their experiences and over-estimate the frequency of these experiences.

People use the language of cime and worry to articulate broader concerns about cherished social conditions that are seen to be in flux. In general, fear of crime is higher among people who perceive their communities as declining. Incivilities are a contributing factor - social and physical disorder, such as loud parties, homelessness, drunkenness, vacant properties, abandoned cars and buildings - all these are seen as breaking down the norms of behaviour and social control and are therefore associated with risk and thus, simply by observing these things, this enhances the fear of crime.

A gathering of young people in public places is often seen as anti-social behaviour by older people, who feel intimidated. The young people who congregate in this manner may not necessarily be causing trouble, or indeed be there to cause trouble. They may be merely meeting with their friends or have nowhere indoors to meet.

Secondly, our politicians. Politicians have now become part of an amorphous and corrupted culture. This government must bear the brunt of the blame, with their dishonest manipulation of statistics for political ends. They do not use statistics to inform people, they use them as a weapon to support whatever point of view they are trying to put over on that particular day. Eleven years of this type of manipulation has led to the total breakdown in trust between the public and the government - and unfortunately this has had the knock-on effect of there being wholesale lack of confidence in every 'public body'. Thus, even though crime has been shown to be falling (certainly locally), people still question this.

Politicians use the fear of crime as a political bandwagon thus perpetuating the myth around fear of crime to serve their political agendas - but this also exacerbates the problem.

Thirdly, there's Policing. Discretion and common sense has been removed from policing by politicians. We thus have a vast over-reporting of so called crimes, things that in the past would never have come anywhere near to being in the police's jurisdiction. This has led to the crazy situation where a playground fight between two 10 year olds enjoys the same level of investigation as that of a serious assault involving weapons. This has in turn led to the police being stuck inside battling bureaucracy, rather than being out on the streets reassuring people with their presence - thus the constant bemoaning of the fact that there's never a policeman around when you want one, hence raising the perception of the fear of crime.

Finally, there's the media. We live in a media saturated culture, and that media (more so the national media, than the local) is increasingly given to exploiting the most fantastic, most gruesome and most dire in an effort to get ratings - if it bleeds, it leads.

Lurid and misleading mass-media reports (take a bow The Sun, The Daily Mail and the Evening Standard, to name the worst offenders) provoke misguided pictures of the crime problem in the general populace, causing some people to feel needlessly vulnerable, their quality of life suffering because they see crime where there is little.

Heightened emotion and sensational media reporting have resulted in people making rapid interpretive leaps from the presence of certain people, or the occurrence of incivilities, to the possibility of criminal activity. This leads people to become less trusting, quick to stereotype and stigmatise and more willing to see any kind of expression of different values as threatening.

The media can make it seem as if you are at the scene of a crime and can therefore create opinions and fears on events that are never experienced firsthand.

Fear of crime can be tackled by our politicians listening to what people want - violent and repeat offenders still aren't being sent to jail for long enough. When you look at the sentencing for offences that the Courts are dishing out, it's no wonder thuggish yobs reoffend. The sanctions applied are pathetic - Community Service orders like picking up leave or going to art classes are contemptible. These people continue to offend as there are no consequences. A risk of severe punishment reduces crime. Deterrence works, whatever rootcause liberals might say. And if people see and believe that the criminal justice system is dealing with criminals in an effective and efficient way, then this will surely make them less likely to fear crime.

This is why I believe we really do need to make the judiciary more open and accountable - the Police can target a high crime area time and again, nicking the criminals, only for the courts to fail to hand down any effective deterrent. That way we could immediately see where the weak links in the criminal justice system are. We'd know exactly who is releasing the criminals back into our community to commit further offences - and exactly who was responsible for raising the 'Fear of Crime' in a particular area.

Anxiety can be induced by constantly focusing on the threat of crime. Study after study has suggested that people, in general, do not have a realistic sense of the incidence of crime and particularly the incidence of more serious and dramatic crimes. Mainstream journalists tend not to question the belief that there is some kind of new, escalating crime menace which requires urgent action, and this colours the opinions of their readers. They maintain that this is a distinctly modern malaise, unlike 'the good old days'.

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying, what is to become of them?" - A Daily Mail or Evening Standard editorial? No, Plato writing in the 4th Century BC. Puts things a little more into perspective doesn't it?!

Excalibur, can you say that again, please?

On second thoughts, for all our sakes, don't.

Your Lord, Erastus Theobald Piggott

Granted, it was lengthy, but it's a subject that can't be adequately dealt with by a quick sound-bite - much as our politicians would love.