Sounds of fear: Sonic ecologies and perceptions of crime

This article examines how sound shapes fear and perceptions of safety in the built environment, arguing for the integration of sonic dimensions into criminological research. Drawing on recontextualised qualitative data, supplemented by audio field recordings and photographs, we revisit participant-identified sites to explore how auditory cues mediate experiences of unease and security. Methodologically, the article advances an innovative, participant-directed, multi-sensory approach that combines secondary qualitative analysis with situated sonic and visual methods. The analysis highlights the affective role of sonic environments – from familiar residential quiet to ‘sounds out of place’ – and develops three analytic dualisms: experiential and expressive, quiet and silence, and thick and thin places. In doing so, the article foregrounds fear of crime as a situated, sensory, and atmospheric experience shaped through sonic encounters with place.