Hearing about events and knowing others who have been victimised are thought to raise perceptions of the risk of victimisation. This has been described as a 'crime multiplier', or processes operating in the residential environment that would 'spread' the impacts of criminal events. Such evidence exists that hearing of friends' or neighbours' victimisation increases anxiety that indirect experiences of crime may play a stronger role in anxieties about victimisation than direct experience. However, there is a cautionary note: '… many residents of a neighbourhood only know of indirectly via channels that may inflate, deflate, or garble the picture.' A subject's criminal risk perception is exaggerated by peer-communication on crime and only moderated by the own experience.