FEAR OF CRIME AMONG THE ELDERLY: A STUDY OF LUCKNOW DISTRICT IN UTTAR PRADESH

Abstract

The population of India has approximately tripled during the last 50 years, but the number of elderly has increased more than fourfold. With an ever changing socio-economic and demographic scenario across the country, living conditions of elderly have also changed remarkably. Today, with advancement of medical science, a better standard of life and overall development in the country, not only is the number of elderly growing rapidly, their life expectancy is also gaining new heights every year. With the steady rise in elderly population, the rate of their problems is also increasing. The problem of crime against the elderly is one of them. The cases of crimes against the elderly are rising fast across the country. Today, they are being attacked for grievous hurt, murder, and abuse by known and unknown persons. These cases have certainly affected the way of life and sense of well being of the elderly to a large extent causing a fracture in their social bonds from the family as well as the society. The fear of crime among the elderly is being recognised as an emerging social problem among the elderly in India. There have been some studies conducted on crime against the elderly and elder abuse in India. These studies examined the causes, consequences of crime and abuse against the elderly which indirectly reflect fear of crime among the elderly. But none of these studies has paid direct attention towards fear of crime. Outside India, fear of crime has found a new dimension in the context of gerontological research. As a result, a number of studies have been conducted there related to different dimensions of fear of crime and elderly. In the view of the fact that there has not been a single research on establishing a linkage between fear of crime and the elderly in India, there is a dire need of scientific enquiry to analyse this issue from multiple perspectives. The current research intends to study fear of crime among the rural and urban elderly. The study has three major objectives. The first objective understands the nature of crime against the elderly in socio-cultural context. The second objective explores the factors affecting fear of crime among the elderly. Finally, the third objective examines the linkage between social bonding and fear of crime among the elderly. ii The researcher has chosen 220 elderly respondents through convenience sampling. The study has been carried out in the district of Lucknow in the state of Uttar Pradesh. In this study mixed method approach has been used. This study applies the principles of convergent parallel mixed methods design to examine the emerging social problem of elder abuse and addresses the gap in current knowledge. It involves the independent collection and analysis of two strands of data, from two theoretical paradigms: (i) qualitative data derived from in-depth interviews (ii) quantitative data derived from structured interviews. Then, findings are analysed through narrative and descriptive analysis. The study found that the various factors such as prior victimization, vulnerability incivility and crime rate of an area give rise to feeling of fear among the elderly. This lends credence to concepts of incivility, vulnerability and defensibility as all these concepts, more or less, talk of weaknesses in physical environment, lack of proper social network, the presence of anti-social elements in the neighbourhood and poor vigilance by the law enforcement agencies. These factors definitely raise concern among the elderly as occurrences of such cases generate feeling of fear of crime among them. Further, study pointed out that the known persons such as family members, relatives and neighbours have been involved in many cases of elder abuse. This is a significant finding as the elderly have, in general, relied upon the family members and relatives for physical and mental support. Their dependence on family members is based on trust, reciprocity and to some extent helplessness. The study found that the family members, invariably, do not provide proper food, clothing and medical facilities. This indifference emotionally weakens them and brings many problems to them such as feeling of negligence, isolation and fear of abuse. The study contributes to the existing discourse of fear of crime among the elderly with suggestions and directions for further enquiry.