Summary
"Understanding fear of crime is the purpose of a significant body of research. Researchers studying the phenomenon span several disciplines including criminology, psychology, geography, architecture and sociology and with them they bring different theoretical perspectives. The goal of this dissertation is to join these perspectives into a composite meta-theoretical framework or theoretical matrix designed to enhance our understanding of research on fear of crime. The fear of crime matrix is tested through the analysis of a series of five community surveys in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada."--Page iii.