Assignment Task: Women's Fear of Crime Women's Fear of Crime. Once you complete the lessons on this page, you will read the first three chapters of Esther Madriz's path breaking book, Nothing Bad Happens to Good Girls. An awful lot has been written recently about the fear of crime. As Madriz points out in her book, the fear of crime has replaced crime itself as one of the more pressing social problems of our day. More importantly, her conversations with women about their fears breathes life into government data that document the fact that significantly more women than men are fearful of crime. Thus, the fear of crime has become a woman's issue. The Consequences of Crime Fear. Madriz claims that fear of crime is one of the few experiences that all women share. What makes her book so provocative is that her analysis conceptualizes women's fear of crime as a cause as much as a consequence. What I mean by that is that conventional studies of women's fears have sought to look at what causes such fear. Madriz takes the next step and asks what are the social and economic consequences of crime fear. If you take a moment to think about it, such a shift in emphasis is no small thing. Madriz is arguing that the fear of crime (whether it is founded or unfounded) has profound implications, not just for our sense of safety, but for our economic security as well. Need Assignment Help?