According to Scarborough et al. (2010), fear of crime and terrorism are arguably more destructive to society and individual’s lives than the acts themselves. Not only does crime and terrorism related anxiety reduce life satisfaction amongst individuals, but also can lead to increasingly authoritarian policy in response to public fear (Grabosky, 1995). For example, widespread fear in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States provided legitimacy and justification for the radical Patriot Act which increased funding to law enforcement and national security agencies. Moreover, specific clauses in the act allowed for immigrants to be targeted, not afforded civil liberties, and call in to question whether their human …show more content…
Initially, this design will involve drawing a simple random sample of communities from the Gold Coast/Brisbane city area and gathering data on levels of immigrant integration. Subsequently, a simple random sample of households from each of the aforementioned communities will be gathered in order to collect data on fear of crime and terrorism within the community. Furthermore, data will be collected on fear of crime and terrorism using a survey methodology outlined by Chataway and Hart (2016), while levels of immigrant integration will be determined from government data concerning indicators of integration identified by Entzinger and Biezeveld (2003). Finally, this proposal will highlight potential ethical concerns and offer suitable management strategies. Ultimately, if this study is approved, I hypothesise that decreased levels of fear of crime and terrorism accompany increased immigrant integration in a …show more content…
However, there are some limitations to this model. One such limitation is that while easier to analyse, quantitative research cannot as effectively record the subjective reasoning, opinions, and motivations of participants (Rubin & Babbie, 2016). This is a disadvantage for this study, as fear of crime and terrorism can be influenced by factors that aren’t considered when crafting a quantitative survey. Moreover, according to Chataway and Hart (2016), predominantly quantitative fear of crime research has often failed to account for subjective perceptions of risk when formulating research design. Nevertheless, in order to remedy this disadvantage, this study will utilize the findings of Chataway & Hart (2016) when establishing the data collection method (see page 6). A further disadvantage of the proposed research design is that unlike experimental research, cross-sectional designs cannot determine causation (Perri & Bellamy, 2012). Although a longitudinal design would have allowed the measurement of covariance and temporal order, enhancing causal inference, it would be more costly. Regardless, establishing a causal relationship is not within the scope of this study, rather, it endeavours determine whether the variables are