This thesis contains five studies that in different ways investigate poverty and the relation between poverty and exposure to crime. The basis of the thesis has been the question of how poverty is related to other welfare problems such as unemployment and health problems, focusing on exposure to crime and fear of crime. The thesis also has a comparative element. In one article, the conditions in Britain, Finland and Sweden are compared, and two articles compare conditions in Britain and Sweden. Poverty has been measured as relative deprivation. This is done by measuring consumption of socially perceived necessities, both goods and activities. For poverty to be at hand, not consuming some of the goods or not engaging in some of the activities must be a consequence of lack of economic resources, not of personal preference. The relation between poverty and exposure to crime has been understood from an interactionist perspective, where the possible interaction between and intersection of potential offender and potential victim constitute the determinant factor for the risk of being exposed to crime. In this perspective, the poor are more exposed because their situation of being poor places them in situations where the risks of being exposed are high. Fear of crime stems from different sources. The significance of earlier victimization, the characteristics of the geographical unit where one lives and vulnerability in the event of actual exposure have been investigated. It was found that poverty measured as relative deprivation is related to other welfare problems, primarily other economic problems, unemployment, health impairments, anxiety, sleeping problems and headaches. But it was also found that poverty is related to exposure to crime and fear of crime. Furthermore, poverty based on an income measure did not correlate especially well with other welfare problems. It was also found that the extent of poverty measured as relative deprivation is equal in Britain and Sweden, while it is more extensive in Finland. This result contradicts earlier studies based on income measurements of poverty, which show that poverty is about equally common in Sweden and Finland and more extensive in Britain. It was found that the reason why relative deprivation is more extensive in Finland is that the level of unemployment is higher there and that the unemployed are worse off in Finland than in Britain and Sweden. Regarding the relation between poverty and exposure to property crime, it was found that the poor are more exposed than are the non-poor with regard to the property crime that violates personal integrity most: property crime related to the residence. Exposure to crime was found to be more of a poverty problem in Sweden than in Britain. Because crime rates are about equal in Britain and Sweden, the result indicates that the risk of being exposed to crime in Britain is more equally distributed across the population. Furthermore, it was found that fear of crime in Sweden is related to poverty, while fear of crime in Britain is more related to vulnerability in general, particularly vulnerability on the labour market. One reason for this may be that fear of crime is more common in Britain than in Sweden. Fear of crime may be such a general problem in Britain that the poor cannot be differentiated from the non-poor.

The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between trust in the police and exposure to crime against an individual as a measure of crime at a municipal level. Attempts to establishing a direction of causality between trust and crime levels was done. A secondary analysis of the material from The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention and The Swedish Crime Survey from 2021 constituted the data that was used. The research method used was multiple regression analysis and panel regression for the question of causality. The results showed that a statistically significant relationship between the variables existed. The panel regression analysis showed that it was not possible to establish a direction of causality.

The purpose of the study was to examine concern and exposure to crime in relation to the individual’s close relative’s/close friend's exposure to crime. Two binary logistic regressions were used based on data from a crime survey done by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. Previous research and victimological theories indicated that additional factors could be relevant to risk of exposure to crime. The identified factors were gender, age, academic achievements, occupation and whether the respondent was living alone. However the main focus of the study was close relative’s/close friend’s exposure to crime and its effect on the individual's concern and exposure to crime, in relation to the lifestyle and routine activities theory. The logistic regressions were used to analyse the data and the results indicated that risk for concern and exposure to crime was substantially higher if the individual had a close relative/close friend who was exposed to crime. The control variables and their effect on the aforementioned relationship were as previous research suggested it would be, and were used to explain some of the variance. / Studiens syfte var att undersöka om det finns ett samband mellan individens oro och utsatthet för brott och individens närståendes utsatthet för brott. För att undersöka det här användes data från Brottsförebyggande rådets nationella trygghetsundersökning och det genomfördes två logistiska regressionsanalyser. En genomgång av tidigare forskning och viktimologiska teorier indikerade att ett flertal faktorer påverkar risken för utsatthet. De faktorerna som identifierades och användes som kontrollvariabler var kön, ålder, utbildningsnivå, sysselsättning och boendesituation. Det primära fokuset i studien var om risken för oro och utsatthet påverkas av en närståendes utsatthet och om det kan förklaras av rutinaktiviteter och livsstil. Resultatet utifrån de logistiska regressionsanalyser visade att risken för att individen var orolig och/eller utsatt för brott ökade om individen hade en närstående som var utsatt för brott. Kontrollvariablernas påverkan stämde överens med förväntningar från tidigare forskning och bidrog till att förklara en del av variansen i respektive beroende variabel.