The impact of ethnocultural empathy, social contact, and symbolic threat levels on fear of crime among immigrants from Turkey in Germany

The concept of fear of crime, extensively studied on numerous samples in the literature, is planned to be examined in this research within the context of migration, focusing specifically on the migrant group that has moved from Turkey to Germany. Since the 1960s, there has been a significant migration from Turkey to Germany; although the nature of this migration wave has changed, it has continued up to the present day. The study aims to investigate the fear of crime and the factors influencing this fear among this migrant group. The research involved 108 migrants who were administered a demographical questionnaire, a fear of crime scale, an intergroup contact scale, a symbolic threat scale, and an ethnocultural empathy scale. In general, the level of fear of crime in the sample was observed to be low, but similar to findings in the literature, it was found that women in this group had more fear of crime than men. Analyzing the intergroup dynamics, it was observed that with increased ethnocultural empathy and social contact, the perception of symbolic threat towards other groups decreased. These results are intended to contribute to the literature on fear of crime, especially within the context of studies conducted with minority groups.