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The myth of increased crime in Japan: A false perception of crime frequency in post-disaster situations
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 13 (2015) 301–306
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International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijdrr
The myth of increased crime in Japan: A false perception of crime frequency in post-disaster situations Tatsuya Nogami Research Center for Crisis and Contingency Management, Meiji University, Tokyo, Ja pan
art ic l e i nf o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 22 May 2015 Received in revised form 14 July 2015 Accepted 14 July 2015 Available online 15 July 2015
People tend to perceive that crime is widespread in post-disaster situations. This common misconception, also known as the myth of increased crime, was examined based on an online convenience sample of 600 people. A 11-item questionnaire survey was designed to examine what types of criminal acts people assumed would increase in post-disaster situations, as well as whether the amount of media consumption and preferences for media coverage of crime would affect the perceived frequency of postdisaster crime. Results found that people assumed that only theft, fraud, and looting, would increase after disasters, while they did not seem to think that sex offense, assault, and murder, would increase. Also, results of regression analysis found that only age, weekly hours of Internet access, and the person’s preference for media coverage of daily crime were found to be significant predictors of the myth, although the present prediction models failed to provide a satisfactory explanation. Unexpectedly, hours of television viewing and one’s preference for media coverage of post-disaster crime were found to have no significant effects on the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime. Types of criminal acts misperceived to increase in post-disaster situations and alternative sources of the myth are discussed to some extent. & 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Post-disaster crime Disaster myth Disaster behavior Mass media Disaster response Public safety
1. Introduction People have been found susceptible to a number of misconceptions, when it comes to human behavior in disasters [1–10]. One classic example of such disaster ‘myths’ is the assumption that crime is on the rise in disaster-affected areas. Past research has been repeatedly indicating that people generally show altruism and prosociality in post-disaster situations rather than selfishness and antisociality [10–14]. Furthermore, in many cases the crime rate of disaster-affected areas decreases or at least does not increase in post-disaster years [9,15–18]. Nevertheless, people tend to expect crime to flourish in post-disaster situations [19–22]. Although it is now evident that people hold less accurate perceptions of post-disaster crime [23,24], still little is known about this tendency. For instance, it is still unknown exactly what types of criminal acts (e.g., looting, sex offense, murder) people assume will actually increase in post-disaster situations. Likewise, many disaster researchers have been claiming that the mass media are a primary source of disaster myths [12,24–31], as disaster behavior portrayed by the media is in many cases exaggerated, possibly causing people’s misunderstandings about such behavior. Nonetheless, little research, if any, has empirically examined effects of the mass media exclusively on people’s perceptions of postE-mail address: [email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2015.07.007 2212-4209/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
disaster crime. Therefore, the present study is designed to fulfill these purposes. 1.1. Post-disaster crime in Japan It is taken as a given among disaster researchers that crime does not increase in post-disaster situations [9,15,16]. Japan seems to be no exception to this statement. After the Great HanshinAwaji Earthquake, in which more than 6400 people lost their lives, the number of crimes in the affected areas was found to have decreased, when compared to the previous year [17]. Furthermore, the National Police Agency issued an official statement approximately three weeks after the 2011 Great East Japan Disaster, which resulted in the loss of 15,884 lives with 2636 still missing [32], that serious crimes such as murder, robbery, and rape had not increased in the three most affected areas, Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima [33]. A year later they further announced that the number of crimes in the affected areas had generally decreased on a yearto-year comparison after the disaster [18]. Of course, post-disaster situations are not crime-free. For instance, a variety of antisocial behavior was reported to have occurred in New Orleans right after the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, although some of these reports were later found seriously distorted by the mass media [12,34–36]. The occurrence of post-disaster crime (e.g., looting) is thought to be subject to strong preconditions that favor such antisocial behavior (e.g., poverty [5,37]). Also,
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it is important to note that the city of New Orleans had quite high crime rates even before the disaster [38]. Japan has had lower crime rates [39] and economic disparities [40] compared to the U.S. Yet, increases in certain types of postdisaster crime were actually observed in the past (motorcycle theft in the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake [17] and a variety of theft crimes in the 2011 Great East Japan Disaster [18,41–44]). As some disaster researchers have been insisting [12], some opportunistic misdeeds may occur in post-disaster situations that are not attributable to organized gangs or disaster victims in need. Thus, some exceptions can occasionally be observed after disasters. However, it still seems reasonable, on the whole, to assume that the crime rate of the disaster-affected areas did not generally increase in post-disaster years in Japan, consistent with what disaster researchers in Western countries have been claiming over the past decades [3,9,16,45]. With this background, the present study first examines what types of criminal acts Japanese people assume will increase after a disaster. Past research only mentioned that people tend to misperceive the frequency of post-disaster crime; no specific criminal acts have been suggested as myth-susceptible based on empirical research up to now. Also, the present study explores whether the amount of media consumption, such as television viewing and Internet access, and preferences for crime news affect the degree to which people misperceive the frequency of post-disaster crime. This notion apparently sounds neither new nor novel, as many disaster researchers have been pointing out influence of the mass media on disaster myths over the past decades [12,24–30]. However, as already mentioned, no research has empirically examined effects of media consumption and preferences for crime news on the myth of increased crime. The present study is first to empirically explore this assumption. 1.2. Hypotheses of the present study There are two hypotheses in the present study. First, the study examines what types of criminal acts people assume will actually increase in a post-disaster situation. On the basis of National Police Agency’s six crime categories (theft crime, white-collar crime, moral offense, violent crime, serious crime, and other crimes) [18], theft, fraud, sex offense, violent assault, and murder are taken from the first five categories in order to measure people’s perceived frequency of post-disaster crime. Looting is also added to these five criminal acts as a disaster-related criminal behavior, although looting is not included in the official crime statistics in Japan. Whether true or not, all these six criminal acts were reported to have occurred in past disasters by the domestic and foreign mass media [19,20,41,42,44,46,47]. The first hypothesis of the study predicts that people assume that all these criminal acts will increase in post-disaster situations. H1: People assume that theft, fraud, sex offense, violent assault, and murder will all increase in post-disaster situations. As for the second hypothesis, the present study looks into how the amount of media consumption (television viewing and Internet access) affects the myth of increased crime. In addition to that, effects of the person’s preferences for media coverage of daily crime and post-disaster crime on the myth of increased crime are also explored. Presumably, along with the amount of media consumption, these preferences should contribute to strengthening belief in the myth. Thus, the second hypothesis predicts that the amount of media consumption and preferences for media coverage of crime will increase the person’s perceived frequency of post-disaster crime. H2: The more time people spend watching television and getting on the Internet and the more attention one pays to media coverage of daily crime and post-disaster crime, the higher the
perceived frequencies of all the six post-disaster criminal acts will be.
2. Methods 2.1. Participants The present study employed a convenience sample provided by a Japanese online survey company. Participants were randomly recruited from a panel of registered online respondents held by the online survey company. This survey company holds more than 2.2 million potential online respondents all over the country. These online respondents are recruited by the survey company through its website. Whenever respondents complete an online survey, they can earn participation points that can be used as a cash voucher on a variety of online shopping sites. A total of 600 Japanese participants (379 men [63.17%] and 221 women [36.83%]) took part in the study. Their ages ranged from 20 to 69 years old (M ¼47.11, SD ¼11.11; 8.00% of the participants were in their 20s, 15.67% in the 30s, 32.50% in the 40s, 29.17% in the 50s, and 14.67% in the 60s). Comparing demographic details of the present sample to those of the current Japanese population (48.68% for men, 51.37% for women; 10.27% in the 20s, 13.11% in the 30s, 14.20% in the 40s, 12.15% in the 50s, and 14.43% in the 60 [48]), men were overrepresented in the present sample. Also, participants in the 40s and 50s did not appropriately reflect the proportions of the general population. Hence, great care needed to be taken, when interpreting present findings. 2.2. Materials The web-based questionnaire contained 11 question items. The first two items measured the participant’s average weekly hours of television viewing and Internet access. The next two items were prepared for measuring the degrees to which the participant would pay attention to media coverage of crime under non-disaster and post-disaster circumstances (‘I usually pay a lot of attention to media reports on crime’, ‘I pay particular attention to media reports on crime after a disaster occurs’) on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). Six items were prepared for measuring the participant’s perceived frequency of crimes in post-disaster situations, which were designed to capture the myth of increased crime. The frequency of six criminal acts (theft, fraud, looting, sex offense, assault, and murder) was rated on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (significantly decrease) to 5 (significantly increase). Finally, in order to confirm that the mass media were the primary source of the myth of increased crime, participants were also asked to choose which information source they had relied on when they decided the perceived frequency of each criminal act. Nine information sources were prepared for this purpose; one’s actual disaster experience, personal accounts of disaster victims, verbal rumors, the mass media (e.g., articles and accounts on TV, newspaper, the radio, and the Internet), Social Networking Services (SNSs; e.g., information on Twitter, Facebook, and online bulletin boards), non-fiction (e.g., interview programs, documentary programs, and their related books), fiction (movies, cartoons, and novels), other sources, and no particular source. This was a multiple-choice question, so that participants could choose as many information sources as they wanted. 2.3. Procedure The present study was conducted at the end of February in 2015. The online survey company first randomly distributed an
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invitation e-mail to potential respondents. The recruitment of participants was closed, when the number of survey candidates reached 600. Participants who had agreed to take part in the study were asked to visit the survey website described in the invitation e-mail. On the survey website, the 11-item questionnaire was displayed, and participants were asked to complete the questionnaire on the Internet at their convenience during a four-day survey period.
3. Results The significance level of all statistical tests was set at .05. Descriptive statistics of the first two items indicated that participants would spend an average of 16.87 h a week watching television (SD ¼ 15.15) and an average of 18.09 h a week getting on the Internet (SD ¼19.21). The two preference items showed identical mean scores with similar standard deviations; an average of 3.36 for both the daily crime item (SD ¼.89) and post-disaster crime item (SD ¼ .87). In order to examine which criminal acts participants assumed would increase in post-disaster situations, each score of the six criminal acts was compared with the scale center-point of 3 in a one-sample t-test (Table 1). All the six criminal acts were found statistically different from the scale center-point, but only murder showed the opposite direction. Considering the effect sizes of the one-sample t-tests, it was safe to construe that participants assumed that only theft, fraud, and looting would increase after a disaster. Also, so as to examine the reliability of this six-item questionnaire, principal components analysis was performed on the six criminal acts with Varimax rotation and an eigenvalue cutoff point of 1.0. Two factors (theft, looting, and fraud for the first, and assault, sex offense and murder for the second) were found that explained 60.28% of the variance. A Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient of the first factor was .81, whereas that of the second factor was .80. As for information sources of the perceived frequencies of the criminal acts, point-biserial correlation coefficients were calculated between each of the nine information sources and the perceived frequencies of the criminal acts. Table 2 indicates that the mass media were statistically positively correlated with the perceived frequencies of all the six criminal acts, although the relationships were weak. SNSs were also found positively correlated with the perceived frequencies of all the criminal acts, but the relationships were even weaker than the mass media. Fiction and non-fiction were found to have positive, but weak associations with the perceived frequencies of fraud, looting, sex offense, and assault. It was also found that the perceived frequency of each crime tended to decrease when participants had ‘no particular source.’ Thus, although the associations were quite weak, participants thought that the mass media were the primary information Table 1 Results of one-sample t-test for the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime. Type of crime
M
SD
t
p
r
Theft Fraud Looting Sex Offense Assault Murder
4.03 3.80 3.85 3.27 3.37 2.92
.73 .76 .76 .74 .77 .79
34.78 25.63 27.53 8.94 11.84 2.44
o .001 o .001 o .001 o .001 o .001 .015
.82 .72 .75 .34 .44 .10
Note. Each score of the six question items was examined with the scale center-point (3). The degree of freedom of all the t-tests was 599. N ¼600
303
source of the perceived frequencies of the six post-disaster crimes. Finally, a multiple regression was conducted with the forced entry method to examine whether the media consumption and preferences for media coverage of crime would affect the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime. Outcome variables were the participant’s perceived frequencies of the six criminal acts. Predictor variables consisted of six items; two demographic question items (gender and age), two media consumption items (weekly hours of TV viewing and Internet access), and two preference items (media coverage of daily crime and post-disaster crime). The results of the multiple regression analyses (Table 3) found that, although weekly hours of Internet access were found to have some myth-enhancing effect on the perceived frequencies of theft, looting, sex offense, and assault, weekly hours of television viewing did not significantly predict any outcome variables. Also, among the two preference variables, only one’s preference for media coverage of daily crime was found to affect the perceived frequencies of theft, fraud, and looting. Unexpectedly, one’s preference for media coverage of post-disaster crime was not found to be a significant predictor of any outcome variable. As for the rest of the variables, age was a significant predictor of all the outcome variables in a negative direction, while gender was found to have no significant effects on any of the outcome variables. Considering the variance explained by each model, the present models did not appear to give a satisfactory explanation for the myth of increase crime.
4. Discussion When a major disaster occurs, people tend to erroneously perceive increases in post-disaster crime. The present study was designed to examine what types of criminal acts people assumed would increase in post-disaster situations, as well as whether the media consumption and preferences for media coverage of crime would affect the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime. The results found that people perceived, more or less, that theft, fraud, looting, sex offense, and assault would increase in post-disaster situations, but murder would not. Since the mean scores of sex offense, assault, and murder were found to be around the scale center-point, it is sensible to construe that participants assumed that only theft, fraud, and looting would increase in post-disaster situations. Thus, the first hypothesis is not fully supported. The reason why people perceived sex offense, assault, and murder differently from theft, fraud, and looting is unclear. However, one possible explanation may come from a difference in the target of criminal acts. Theft, fraud, and looting are all propertytargeted crimes, whereas sex offense, assault, and murder are person-targeted. Presumably, these property-targeted crimes are less evident after the fact than the person-targeted crimes, as such crimes could be committed without direct contact with crime victims. Thus, participants might have thought that the propertytargeted crimes would more easily flourish than the person-targeted crimes in the confusion of a disaster. In a sense, these perceptions are not completely wrong, as the property-targeted crimes seem to occasionally increase in post-disaster situations [17,18,41–45] whereas the person-targeted crimes rarely do [18,33,49]. The second hypothesis is also not fully supported, as only two out of four media consumption and preference variables (average weekly hours of Internet access and one’s preference for media coverage of daily crime) were found to significantly predict the perceived frequencies of some post-disaster criminal acts. As for the predictor variables other than the media-related ones, age was found to have some negative effects on the myth: Older people
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Table 2 Point-biserial correlation coefficients between the six crime items and their reported information sources. Theft
One’s actual experience Accounts of victims Rumors Mass media SNSs Non-fiction Fiction Other sources No particular source
Fraud
Looting
Sex offense
Assault
Murder
Yes
rpb
Yes
rpb
Yes
rpb
Yes
rpb
Yes
rpb
Yes
rpb
19 50 91 374 69 50 29 9 124
.03 .10* .08 .21** .11** .08 .06 .07 .23**
18 26 69 323 69 38 22 13 197
.12** .06 .09* .36** .14** .11** .15** .04 .35**
18 44 79 324 73 48 36 7 169
.02 .10* .07 .27** .17** .12** .11** .04 .28**
10 21 44 175 53 26 23 12 345
.12** .17** .20** .30** .25** .15** .20** .10* .32**
13 19 30 185 56 30 20 13 339
.03 .06 .06 .31** .18** .19** .16** .04 .28**
10 11 16 135 34 22 8 15 404
.04 .08 .07 .17** .11** .05 .01 .15** .13**
Note. Multiple answers allowed. N ¼ 600. * **
p o .05. po .01.
Table 3 Results of the multiple regression analyses with each of the six criminal acts as an outcome variable. Theft β Constant Gender Age Television viewing Internet access Daily crime news Post-Disaster Crime news Adjusted R2 F
Fraud β
t ***
.02 .16 .02 .11 .20 .09 .09 10.68***
22.33 .59 3.83*** .47 2.67** 3.60*** 1.66
Looting β
t ***
.02 .12 .02 .04 .21 .03 .05 6.66***
19.90 .56 2.81** 0.34 1.03 3.77*** .49
Sex offense β
t ***
.02 .11 .00 .11 .16 .04 .04 5.26***
20.59 .55 2.65** .03 2.52* 2.77** .69
.01 .18 .01 .11 .02 .10 .04 5.07***
Assault β
t ***
19.95 .30 4.24*** .22 2.53* .32 1.87
Murder β
t ***
.03 .17 .03 .12 .02 .10 .04 5.19***
19.82 .65 3.96*** .64 2.81* 0.33 1.89
.01 .13 .02 .02 .05 .07 .01 2.10
t 17.80*** .22 3.12** .42 .44 .83 1.32
Note. N ¼ 600. *
p o .05. po .01. *** p o .001 **
were less likely to overestimate the frequency of post-disaster crime than their younger counterparts. Also, women are generally more fearful of crime than men [50,51]. Nonetheless, at least gender did not seem to strongly affect the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime in the present study. Despite the above findings, none of the present prediction models was found satisfactory. Weak predictive powers of the present regression models imply that there should be some other factors affecting the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime, other than the amount of media consumption and preferences for crime news. One potential factor is the degree to which the media sensationalize post-disaster crime news. As the 2005 Hurricane Katrina showed, the media can exaggerate crime news in postdisaster situations [12,36,3435]. Presumably, even casual viewing of such exaggerated post-disaster crime news may be sufficient to make people misperceive the frequency of post-disaster crime. Therefore, the quality of media coverage perceived by the public, rather than the quantity of their media consumption, should be taken into account in the future (e.g., asking participants to evaluate the degree to which actual media coverage of post-disaster crime is sensationalized and/or exaggerated). Media exaggeration could possibly play a key role in the myth of increased crime. However, as far as the results of the present findings are concerned, the mass media did not seem, at least, to have as large an influence on the myth of increased crime as claimed by disaster researchers [12,25,26]: the present study found that the mass media (articles and accounts on TV, newspaper, the radio, and the Internet) were the primary source of the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime, but these two were
only weakly associated. Hence, there also seems to be a possibility that the mass media themselves might not be a primary provider of the myth of increased crime. Other than the mass media, no specific provider of the myth has been suggested in the past. Nonetheless, the idiomatic expression ‘fish in troubled waters (the Japanese equivalent is kajiba dorobou [theft at a fire site])’ implies that somebody can take advantage of a confused situation: Some people could gain an advantage by engaging in criminal acts in the confusion of a disaster. Therefore, regardless of media coverage and/or the actual occurrence of post-disaster crime, people might unconsciously expect some forms of criminal acts (e.g., property-targeted crime) to flourish to some degree, whenever they face confused circumstances. This possibility can be explored by asking people whether they think criminal acts will increase in different types of confused situations (e.g., confusions caused by a disaster, an economic crisis, and political uncertainty). 4.1. Conclusions In summary, the present study found that people assumed that property-targeted crimes, such as theft, fraud, and looting, would increase in post-disaster situations, while person-targeted crimes would not. As for the effects of the mass media on the perceived frequencies of these three criminal acts, only age, weekly hours of the Internet access, and the person’s preference for media coverage of daily crime were found to have some effects on the myth. More precisely, young, frequent Internet users who pay particular attention to media coverage of daily crime could be most
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susceptible to the myth of increased crime. The notion that the amount of media consumption and preferences for media coverage affect the degree to which people misperceive disaster behavior apparently sounds plausible, but this may not be the case, at least for the myth of increased crime. 4.2. Limitations of the present study Several limitations should also be noted, when construing the present findings. First, as already mentioned in Section 2, because the present study employed a convenience sample derived from the Internet, caution needs to be exercised when generalizing the present findings. Second, the present study examined only six criminal acts, but other types may produce different results. Third, among a number of existing disaster myths [5,10,24], only the myth of increased crime was examined in the present study. Thus, the amount of media consumption and preferences for media coverage may have different effects on other myths (e.g., disaster panic). Finally, since part of the present study relied on participants’ retrospective accounts (choosing a primacy information source of the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime), such subjectively chosen information sources might have been affected by memory distortion and/or forgetfulness. More detailed question items (e.g., asking which TV station/newspaper participants actually collected information about post-disaster crime from) and/or conducting a survey right after a disaster occurs may provide more accurate responses for similar research in the future.
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Heisei 23 nen (2011 nen) Tohoku chihou taiheiyou oki zishin no higai joukyou to keisatsu sochi (Disaster Damages to the Tohoku Region). Retrieved from: 〈http://www.npa.go.jp/archive/keibi/biki/hi gaijokyo.pdf〉. [33] National Police Agency, 2011. Futashikana jouhou ni madowasarezu, ochitsuitekoudouwo! (Act Calmly and do not get Swayed by Unreliable Information!). April 1. Retrieved from: 〈http://warp.da.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/ 3487619/www.npa.go.jp/archive/keibi/biki/cyber/futashika.pdf〉. [34] Dwyer, J., Drew, C., 2005. Fear Exceeded Crime’s Reality in New Orleans. The New York Times. September 29. Retrieved from: 〈http://www.nytimes.com/ 2005/09/29/national/nationalspecial/29crime.html?pagewanted¼ all&_r¼ 0〉. [35] Gold, S., 2005. Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy. Los Angeles Times. September 27. Retrieved from: 〈http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/ 27/nation/na-rumors27/2〉. [36] B. Thevenot, Myth-making in New Orleans, Am. J. Rev. 27 (6) (2006) 30–37. [37] D. Alexander, Disaster management: from theory to implementation, J. Seismol. Earthq. Eng. 9 (1) (2007) 39–49. [38] Ripley, A., 2006. What happened to the gangs of New Orleans? Time magazine. May 14. Retrieved from 〈http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/ 0,9171,1194016,00.html〉. [39] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2013. Amerika galtushuukoku: Anzen taisaku kiso dehtah (The U.S.: Basic Information on Safety Measures). Retrieved from: 〈http://www2.anzen.mofa.go.jp/info/pcsafetymeasure.asp?id ¼ 221〉. [40] A. Abe, Amerika no shotoku kakusa to kokumin ishiki (Economic disparities and public awareness in the U.S.), Kaigai Shakai Hoshou Kenkyuu 159 (2007) 21–36. [41] Asahi, Shimbun, 2011. Bushi busoku de hisaichi no tounan zouka: Gasorin ya shokuhin nado higai (Material Shortage Causes Theft Crime to increase: Petrol and Food are Targeted). March 17. Retrieved from: 〈http://www.asahi.com/ special/10005/TKY201103170165.html〉. [42] Kahoku, Shimpo, 2011. Miyagi de shinsai go setto todoke 290 ken, higaisougaku 1 oku en (The Number of Theft Crime Reached 290 With JPY 100 Million Lost). March 31. Retrieved from: 〈http://web.archive.org/web/ 20110402151306/www.kahoku.co.jp/news/2011/03/20110331t13033.htm〉. [43] Matsutani, J., Watanabe, T., 2011. Higashi nihon daishinsai: Hisaichi de setto aitsugu [The Great East Japan Disaster: Theft Crime Flourishes in the Affected Areas]. The Mainichi Newspapers. March 22. Retrieved from: 〈https://archive. is/20110410120104/mainichi.jp/area/miyagi/news/ 20110322ddlk04040110000c.html〉. [44] Yomiuri, Shimbun, 2011. ‘Hiretsu…,’ Miyagi de shinsai ni binjou shita settou 40 ken [‘Disgraceful…,’ Theft Crime Increasing in Disaster-affected
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(Estimated Population: 1st October, 2015). April 15. Retrieved from: 〈http:// www.stat.go.jp/data/jinsui/2013np/〉. [49] Leitner, M., Helbich, M., 2010. The impact of hurricanes on crime in the city of Houston, TX: a spatio-temporal analysis. Paper presented at a Special Joint Symposium of ISPRS Technical Commission IV & AutoCarto in Conjunction with ASPRS/CaGIS. Orlando, Florida. [50] K. Dowler, Media consumption and public attitudes toward crime and justice: the relationship between fear of crime, punitive attitudes, and perceived police effectiveness, J. Crim. Justice Pop. Cult. 10 (2) (2003) 109–126. [51] K.A. Fox, M.R. Nobles, A.R. Piquero, Gender, crime victimization and fear of crime, Secur. J. 22 (1) (2009) 24–39, http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/sj.2008.13.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijdrr
The myth of increased crime in Japan: A false perception of crime frequency in post-disaster situations Tatsuya Nogami Research Center for Crisis and Contingency Management, Meiji University, Tokyo, Ja pan
art ic l e i nf o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 22 May 2015 Received in revised form 14 July 2015 Accepted 14 July 2015 Available online 15 July 2015
People tend to perceive that crime is widespread in post-disaster situations. This common misconception, also known as the myth of increased crime, was examined based on an online convenience sample of 600 people. A 11-item questionnaire survey was designed to examine what types of criminal acts people assumed would increase in post-disaster situations, as well as whether the amount of media consumption and preferences for media coverage of crime would affect the perceived frequency of postdisaster crime. Results found that people assumed that only theft, fraud, and looting, would increase after disasters, while they did not seem to think that sex offense, assault, and murder, would increase. Also, results of regression analysis found that only age, weekly hours of Internet access, and the person’s preference for media coverage of daily crime were found to be significant predictors of the myth, although the present prediction models failed to provide a satisfactory explanation. Unexpectedly, hours of television viewing and one’s preference for media coverage of post-disaster crime were found to have no significant effects on the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime. Types of criminal acts misperceived to increase in post-disaster situations and alternative sources of the myth are discussed to some extent. & 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Post-disaster crime Disaster myth Disaster behavior Mass media Disaster response Public safety
1. Introduction People have been found susceptible to a number of misconceptions, when it comes to human behavior in disasters [1–10]. One classic example of such disaster ‘myths’ is the assumption that crime is on the rise in disaster-affected areas. Past research has been repeatedly indicating that people generally show altruism and prosociality in post-disaster situations rather than selfishness and antisociality [10–14]. Furthermore, in many cases the crime rate of disaster-affected areas decreases or at least does not increase in post-disaster years [9,15–18]. Nevertheless, people tend to expect crime to flourish in post-disaster situations [19–22]. Although it is now evident that people hold less accurate perceptions of post-disaster crime [23,24], still little is known about this tendency. For instance, it is still unknown exactly what types of criminal acts (e.g., looting, sex offense, murder) people assume will actually increase in post-disaster situations. Likewise, many disaster researchers have been claiming that the mass media are a primary source of disaster myths [12,24–31], as disaster behavior portrayed by the media is in many cases exaggerated, possibly causing people’s misunderstandings about such behavior. Nonetheless, little research, if any, has empirically examined effects of the mass media exclusively on people’s perceptions of postE-mail address: [email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2015.07.007 2212-4209/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
disaster crime. Therefore, the present study is designed to fulfill these purposes. 1.1. Post-disaster crime in Japan It is taken as a given among disaster researchers that crime does not increase in post-disaster situations [9,15,16]. Japan seems to be no exception to this statement. After the Great HanshinAwaji Earthquake, in which more than 6400 people lost their lives, the number of crimes in the affected areas was found to have decreased, when compared to the previous year [17]. Furthermore, the National Police Agency issued an official statement approximately three weeks after the 2011 Great East Japan Disaster, which resulted in the loss of 15,884 lives with 2636 still missing [32], that serious crimes such as murder, robbery, and rape had not increased in the three most affected areas, Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima [33]. A year later they further announced that the number of crimes in the affected areas had generally decreased on a yearto-year comparison after the disaster [18]. Of course, post-disaster situations are not crime-free. For instance, a variety of antisocial behavior was reported to have occurred in New Orleans right after the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, although some of these reports were later found seriously distorted by the mass media [12,34–36]. The occurrence of post-disaster crime (e.g., looting) is thought to be subject to strong preconditions that favor such antisocial behavior (e.g., poverty [5,37]). Also,
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it is important to note that the city of New Orleans had quite high crime rates even before the disaster [38]. Japan has had lower crime rates [39] and economic disparities [40] compared to the U.S. Yet, increases in certain types of postdisaster crime were actually observed in the past (motorcycle theft in the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake [17] and a variety of theft crimes in the 2011 Great East Japan Disaster [18,41–44]). As some disaster researchers have been insisting [12], some opportunistic misdeeds may occur in post-disaster situations that are not attributable to organized gangs or disaster victims in need. Thus, some exceptions can occasionally be observed after disasters. However, it still seems reasonable, on the whole, to assume that the crime rate of the disaster-affected areas did not generally increase in post-disaster years in Japan, consistent with what disaster researchers in Western countries have been claiming over the past decades [3,9,16,45]. With this background, the present study first examines what types of criminal acts Japanese people assume will increase after a disaster. Past research only mentioned that people tend to misperceive the frequency of post-disaster crime; no specific criminal acts have been suggested as myth-susceptible based on empirical research up to now. Also, the present study explores whether the amount of media consumption, such as television viewing and Internet access, and preferences for crime news affect the degree to which people misperceive the frequency of post-disaster crime. This notion apparently sounds neither new nor novel, as many disaster researchers have been pointing out influence of the mass media on disaster myths over the past decades [12,24–30]. However, as already mentioned, no research has empirically examined effects of media consumption and preferences for crime news on the myth of increased crime. The present study is first to empirically explore this assumption. 1.2. Hypotheses of the present study There are two hypotheses in the present study. First, the study examines what types of criminal acts people assume will actually increase in a post-disaster situation. On the basis of National Police Agency’s six crime categories (theft crime, white-collar crime, moral offense, violent crime, serious crime, and other crimes) [18], theft, fraud, sex offense, violent assault, and murder are taken from the first five categories in order to measure people’s perceived frequency of post-disaster crime. Looting is also added to these five criminal acts as a disaster-related criminal behavior, although looting is not included in the official crime statistics in Japan. Whether true or not, all these six criminal acts were reported to have occurred in past disasters by the domestic and foreign mass media [19,20,41,42,44,46,47]. The first hypothesis of the study predicts that people assume that all these criminal acts will increase in post-disaster situations. H1: People assume that theft, fraud, sex offense, violent assault, and murder will all increase in post-disaster situations. As for the second hypothesis, the present study looks into how the amount of media consumption (television viewing and Internet access) affects the myth of increased crime. In addition to that, effects of the person’s preferences for media coverage of daily crime and post-disaster crime on the myth of increased crime are also explored. Presumably, along with the amount of media consumption, these preferences should contribute to strengthening belief in the myth. Thus, the second hypothesis predicts that the amount of media consumption and preferences for media coverage of crime will increase the person’s perceived frequency of post-disaster crime. H2: The more time people spend watching television and getting on the Internet and the more attention one pays to media coverage of daily crime and post-disaster crime, the higher the
perceived frequencies of all the six post-disaster criminal acts will be.
2. Methods 2.1. Participants The present study employed a convenience sample provided by a Japanese online survey company. Participants were randomly recruited from a panel of registered online respondents held by the online survey company. This survey company holds more than 2.2 million potential online respondents all over the country. These online respondents are recruited by the survey company through its website. Whenever respondents complete an online survey, they can earn participation points that can be used as a cash voucher on a variety of online shopping sites. A total of 600 Japanese participants (379 men [63.17%] and 221 women [36.83%]) took part in the study. Their ages ranged from 20 to 69 years old (M ¼47.11, SD ¼11.11; 8.00% of the participants were in their 20s, 15.67% in the 30s, 32.50% in the 40s, 29.17% in the 50s, and 14.67% in the 60s). Comparing demographic details of the present sample to those of the current Japanese population (48.68% for men, 51.37% for women; 10.27% in the 20s, 13.11% in the 30s, 14.20% in the 40s, 12.15% in the 50s, and 14.43% in the 60 [48]), men were overrepresented in the present sample. Also, participants in the 40s and 50s did not appropriately reflect the proportions of the general population. Hence, great care needed to be taken, when interpreting present findings. 2.2. Materials The web-based questionnaire contained 11 question items. The first two items measured the participant’s average weekly hours of television viewing and Internet access. The next two items were prepared for measuring the degrees to which the participant would pay attention to media coverage of crime under non-disaster and post-disaster circumstances (‘I usually pay a lot of attention to media reports on crime’, ‘I pay particular attention to media reports on crime after a disaster occurs’) on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). Six items were prepared for measuring the participant’s perceived frequency of crimes in post-disaster situations, which were designed to capture the myth of increased crime. The frequency of six criminal acts (theft, fraud, looting, sex offense, assault, and murder) was rated on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (significantly decrease) to 5 (significantly increase). Finally, in order to confirm that the mass media were the primary source of the myth of increased crime, participants were also asked to choose which information source they had relied on when they decided the perceived frequency of each criminal act. Nine information sources were prepared for this purpose; one’s actual disaster experience, personal accounts of disaster victims, verbal rumors, the mass media (e.g., articles and accounts on TV, newspaper, the radio, and the Internet), Social Networking Services (SNSs; e.g., information on Twitter, Facebook, and online bulletin boards), non-fiction (e.g., interview programs, documentary programs, and their related books), fiction (movies, cartoons, and novels), other sources, and no particular source. This was a multiple-choice question, so that participants could choose as many information sources as they wanted. 2.3. Procedure The present study was conducted at the end of February in 2015. The online survey company first randomly distributed an
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invitation e-mail to potential respondents. The recruitment of participants was closed, when the number of survey candidates reached 600. Participants who had agreed to take part in the study were asked to visit the survey website described in the invitation e-mail. On the survey website, the 11-item questionnaire was displayed, and participants were asked to complete the questionnaire on the Internet at their convenience during a four-day survey period.
3. Results The significance level of all statistical tests was set at .05. Descriptive statistics of the first two items indicated that participants would spend an average of 16.87 h a week watching television (SD ¼ 15.15) and an average of 18.09 h a week getting on the Internet (SD ¼19.21). The two preference items showed identical mean scores with similar standard deviations; an average of 3.36 for both the daily crime item (SD ¼.89) and post-disaster crime item (SD ¼ .87). In order to examine which criminal acts participants assumed would increase in post-disaster situations, each score of the six criminal acts was compared with the scale center-point of 3 in a one-sample t-test (Table 1). All the six criminal acts were found statistically different from the scale center-point, but only murder showed the opposite direction. Considering the effect sizes of the one-sample t-tests, it was safe to construe that participants assumed that only theft, fraud, and looting would increase after a disaster. Also, so as to examine the reliability of this six-item questionnaire, principal components analysis was performed on the six criminal acts with Varimax rotation and an eigenvalue cutoff point of 1.0. Two factors (theft, looting, and fraud for the first, and assault, sex offense and murder for the second) were found that explained 60.28% of the variance. A Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient of the first factor was .81, whereas that of the second factor was .80. As for information sources of the perceived frequencies of the criminal acts, point-biserial correlation coefficients were calculated between each of the nine information sources and the perceived frequencies of the criminal acts. Table 2 indicates that the mass media were statistically positively correlated with the perceived frequencies of all the six criminal acts, although the relationships were weak. SNSs were also found positively correlated with the perceived frequencies of all the criminal acts, but the relationships were even weaker than the mass media. Fiction and non-fiction were found to have positive, but weak associations with the perceived frequencies of fraud, looting, sex offense, and assault. It was also found that the perceived frequency of each crime tended to decrease when participants had ‘no particular source.’ Thus, although the associations were quite weak, participants thought that the mass media were the primary information Table 1 Results of one-sample t-test for the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime. Type of crime
M
SD
t
p
r
Theft Fraud Looting Sex Offense Assault Murder
4.03 3.80 3.85 3.27 3.37 2.92
.73 .76 .76 .74 .77 .79
34.78 25.63 27.53 8.94 11.84 2.44
o .001 o .001 o .001 o .001 o .001 .015
.82 .72 .75 .34 .44 .10
Note. Each score of the six question items was examined with the scale center-point (3). The degree of freedom of all the t-tests was 599. N ¼600
303
source of the perceived frequencies of the six post-disaster crimes. Finally, a multiple regression was conducted with the forced entry method to examine whether the media consumption and preferences for media coverage of crime would affect the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime. Outcome variables were the participant’s perceived frequencies of the six criminal acts. Predictor variables consisted of six items; two demographic question items (gender and age), two media consumption items (weekly hours of TV viewing and Internet access), and two preference items (media coverage of daily crime and post-disaster crime). The results of the multiple regression analyses (Table 3) found that, although weekly hours of Internet access were found to have some myth-enhancing effect on the perceived frequencies of theft, looting, sex offense, and assault, weekly hours of television viewing did not significantly predict any outcome variables. Also, among the two preference variables, only one’s preference for media coverage of daily crime was found to affect the perceived frequencies of theft, fraud, and looting. Unexpectedly, one’s preference for media coverage of post-disaster crime was not found to be a significant predictor of any outcome variable. As for the rest of the variables, age was a significant predictor of all the outcome variables in a negative direction, while gender was found to have no significant effects on any of the outcome variables. Considering the variance explained by each model, the present models did not appear to give a satisfactory explanation for the myth of increase crime.
4. Discussion When a major disaster occurs, people tend to erroneously perceive increases in post-disaster crime. The present study was designed to examine what types of criminal acts people assumed would increase in post-disaster situations, as well as whether the media consumption and preferences for media coverage of crime would affect the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime. The results found that people perceived, more or less, that theft, fraud, looting, sex offense, and assault would increase in post-disaster situations, but murder would not. Since the mean scores of sex offense, assault, and murder were found to be around the scale center-point, it is sensible to construe that participants assumed that only theft, fraud, and looting would increase in post-disaster situations. Thus, the first hypothesis is not fully supported. The reason why people perceived sex offense, assault, and murder differently from theft, fraud, and looting is unclear. However, one possible explanation may come from a difference in the target of criminal acts. Theft, fraud, and looting are all propertytargeted crimes, whereas sex offense, assault, and murder are person-targeted. Presumably, these property-targeted crimes are less evident after the fact than the person-targeted crimes, as such crimes could be committed without direct contact with crime victims. Thus, participants might have thought that the propertytargeted crimes would more easily flourish than the person-targeted crimes in the confusion of a disaster. In a sense, these perceptions are not completely wrong, as the property-targeted crimes seem to occasionally increase in post-disaster situations [17,18,41–45] whereas the person-targeted crimes rarely do [18,33,49]. The second hypothesis is also not fully supported, as only two out of four media consumption and preference variables (average weekly hours of Internet access and one’s preference for media coverage of daily crime) were found to significantly predict the perceived frequencies of some post-disaster criminal acts. As for the predictor variables other than the media-related ones, age was found to have some negative effects on the myth: Older people
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Table 2 Point-biserial correlation coefficients between the six crime items and their reported information sources. Theft
One’s actual experience Accounts of victims Rumors Mass media SNSs Non-fiction Fiction Other sources No particular source
Fraud
Looting
Sex offense
Assault
Murder
Yes
rpb
Yes
rpb
Yes
rpb
Yes
rpb
Yes
rpb
Yes
rpb
19 50 91 374 69 50 29 9 124
.03 .10* .08 .21** .11** .08 .06 .07 .23**
18 26 69 323 69 38 22 13 197
.12** .06 .09* .36** .14** .11** .15** .04 .35**
18 44 79 324 73 48 36 7 169
.02 .10* .07 .27** .17** .12** .11** .04 .28**
10 21 44 175 53 26 23 12 345
.12** .17** .20** .30** .25** .15** .20** .10* .32**
13 19 30 185 56 30 20 13 339
.03 .06 .06 .31** .18** .19** .16** .04 .28**
10 11 16 135 34 22 8 15 404
.04 .08 .07 .17** .11** .05 .01 .15** .13**
Note. Multiple answers allowed. N ¼ 600. * **
p o .05. po .01.
Table 3 Results of the multiple regression analyses with each of the six criminal acts as an outcome variable. Theft β Constant Gender Age Television viewing Internet access Daily crime news Post-Disaster Crime news Adjusted R2 F
Fraud β
t ***
.02 .16 .02 .11 .20 .09 .09 10.68***
22.33 .59 3.83*** .47 2.67** 3.60*** 1.66
Looting β
t ***
.02 .12 .02 .04 .21 .03 .05 6.66***
19.90 .56 2.81** 0.34 1.03 3.77*** .49
Sex offense β
t ***
.02 .11 .00 .11 .16 .04 .04 5.26***
20.59 .55 2.65** .03 2.52* 2.77** .69
.01 .18 .01 .11 .02 .10 .04 5.07***
Assault β
t ***
19.95 .30 4.24*** .22 2.53* .32 1.87
Murder β
t ***
.03 .17 .03 .12 .02 .10 .04 5.19***
19.82 .65 3.96*** .64 2.81* 0.33 1.89
.01 .13 .02 .02 .05 .07 .01 2.10
t 17.80*** .22 3.12** .42 .44 .83 1.32
Note. N ¼ 600. *
p o .05. po .01. *** p o .001 **
were less likely to overestimate the frequency of post-disaster crime than their younger counterparts. Also, women are generally more fearful of crime than men [50,51]. Nonetheless, at least gender did not seem to strongly affect the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime in the present study. Despite the above findings, none of the present prediction models was found satisfactory. Weak predictive powers of the present regression models imply that there should be some other factors affecting the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime, other than the amount of media consumption and preferences for crime news. One potential factor is the degree to which the media sensationalize post-disaster crime news. As the 2005 Hurricane Katrina showed, the media can exaggerate crime news in postdisaster situations [12,36,3435]. Presumably, even casual viewing of such exaggerated post-disaster crime news may be sufficient to make people misperceive the frequency of post-disaster crime. Therefore, the quality of media coverage perceived by the public, rather than the quantity of their media consumption, should be taken into account in the future (e.g., asking participants to evaluate the degree to which actual media coverage of post-disaster crime is sensationalized and/or exaggerated). Media exaggeration could possibly play a key role in the myth of increased crime. However, as far as the results of the present findings are concerned, the mass media did not seem, at least, to have as large an influence on the myth of increased crime as claimed by disaster researchers [12,25,26]: the present study found that the mass media (articles and accounts on TV, newspaper, the radio, and the Internet) were the primary source of the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime, but these two were
only weakly associated. Hence, there also seems to be a possibility that the mass media themselves might not be a primary provider of the myth of increased crime. Other than the mass media, no specific provider of the myth has been suggested in the past. Nonetheless, the idiomatic expression ‘fish in troubled waters (the Japanese equivalent is kajiba dorobou [theft at a fire site])’ implies that somebody can take advantage of a confused situation: Some people could gain an advantage by engaging in criminal acts in the confusion of a disaster. Therefore, regardless of media coverage and/or the actual occurrence of post-disaster crime, people might unconsciously expect some forms of criminal acts (e.g., property-targeted crime) to flourish to some degree, whenever they face confused circumstances. This possibility can be explored by asking people whether they think criminal acts will increase in different types of confused situations (e.g., confusions caused by a disaster, an economic crisis, and political uncertainty). 4.1. Conclusions In summary, the present study found that people assumed that property-targeted crimes, such as theft, fraud, and looting, would increase in post-disaster situations, while person-targeted crimes would not. As for the effects of the mass media on the perceived frequencies of these three criminal acts, only age, weekly hours of the Internet access, and the person’s preference for media coverage of daily crime were found to have some effects on the myth. More precisely, young, frequent Internet users who pay particular attention to media coverage of daily crime could be most
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susceptible to the myth of increased crime. The notion that the amount of media consumption and preferences for media coverage affect the degree to which people misperceive disaster behavior apparently sounds plausible, but this may not be the case, at least for the myth of increased crime. 4.2. Limitations of the present study Several limitations should also be noted, when construing the present findings. First, as already mentioned in Section 2, because the present study employed a convenience sample derived from the Internet, caution needs to be exercised when generalizing the present findings. Second, the present study examined only six criminal acts, but other types may produce different results. Third, among a number of existing disaster myths [5,10,24], only the myth of increased crime was examined in the present study. Thus, the amount of media consumption and preferences for media coverage may have different effects on other myths (e.g., disaster panic). Finally, since part of the present study relied on participants’ retrospective accounts (choosing a primacy information source of the perceived frequency of post-disaster crime), such subjectively chosen information sources might have been affected by memory distortion and/or forgetfulness. More detailed question items (e.g., asking which TV station/newspaper participants actually collected information about post-disaster crime from) and/or conducting a survey right after a disaster occurs may provide more accurate responses for similar research in the future.
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