Prejudice towards refugees predicts social fear of crime.

Research suggests that social fear of crime and prejudice towards minority groups may be linked. We investigated (N = 7712) whether prejudice towards a social group that is stereotyped as more criminal (refugees) is more strongly associated with social fear of crime than prejudice towards a group that is less (homosexual individuals); and whether prejudice predicts social fear of crime or vice versa. We used a mixed-method approach to show that refugees are stereotyped as more criminal than homosexual individuals (pre-test).