El sentimiento de inseguridad en la Unión Europea. Una aproximación desde las encuestas de opinión pública

Abstract

Security and insecurity relate to a real rate of crime and misdemeanour against people and things. Subjective perception of security and insecurity plays a fundamental role in public opinion. Insecurity, as a feeling, has to do more with subjectivity than with objectivity. Terrorism leads to terror, and terror creates the collective and individual state of mind. Security and insecurity are a result of the model of society. Usually, the insecurity paces ahead of the means that are put to reduce it and to control it. It is not easy to measure the objective insecurity, not all the crimes are declared and it is not so long since the statistical registrations began to apply in a coherent way. It is not easy to analyse tendencies, neither to do comparisons with other countries. Crime and misdemeanour are interpreted and evaluated in a different way. For this reason and as a first way to approach such an important object, the subjective perception of security and insecurity in the European Union before its enlargement has been measured using the surveys of public opinion.