Fear of violent crime: concept and essential features

The article is devoted to the issue of fear of violent crime as one of its intangible social consequences. Despite the fact that the stated topic has repeatedly been the subject of research of a number of psychological, sociological, geopolitical, political and economic works, in modern criminological science it has recently become the object of attention of Russian criminologists and, till present time, it has not received the necessary theoretical development. The article authors concluded that the existence of violent crime carries a potential for harm, ready to be realized, making destructive changes in life and producing fear as a result. At the same time, the fear of it is spread much more than the real risk of becoming a victim. After analyzing the existing Russian and foreign scientific works (Chadee, Endler, Kleinman, Gilchrist, Farrall, Williams, etc.), as well as results of population surveys, conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation, VTSIOM, Russian State Social Univer- sity by order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in 2009-2015 in all regions of the Russian Federation about social fears of citizens, perception of the existing criminal threats and a condition of their reception, the article authors made attempt of research of this negative intangible social consequences of violent crime and presented its scientific defini- tion, features, allocated components of its forming, analyzed the major factors influencing its formation. Based on studies and research of indicators of respondents' answers to the state of security, the article authors concluded about the dynamics of the reduction of negative assessments, at the same time, it was pointed out that the perception of the state of security is predetermined by sex, age, income level, professional and social status, place of residence of the Respondents, the attitude of society to the factors of violent manifestation. In this regard, the contributors concluded that this indicator is one of the criteria for determining the state of security of the population, diagnosing the general social well-being of citizens, and it should be perceived as a direct indicator of fear of criminality.