NCJ Number
90916
Journal
Revue de droit penal et de criminologie Issue: 3 Dated: (March 1982) Pages: 201-224
Date Published
1982
Length
24 pages
Annotation
Criminality appears to be linked not only with the intensity of urbanization but also with the manner in which an urban concentration is produced.
Abstract
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, secondary Belgian cities such as Charleroi were confronted with a very rapid industrialization process and soon had a higher crime rate than did the major cities. Quantitative analysis of criminality in the cities and villages of Belgium in 1965, 1970, and 1975 indicates different prevalence patterns, depending on the type of crime. The proportion of convictions for theft increased each year, especially in the more urbanized centers. By 1975, one-third of convictions in the larger cities were for theft, compared with one-quarter for towns of less than 10,000 inhabitants. The number of convictions for bodily injury remained fairly constant in the larger cities but decreased considerably in the less urbanized centers. More adultery convictions were reported for the larger centers than for the smaller towns in 1965 and 1970, but the reverse was true in 1975. Analysis of citizens' feelings about crime and security in Liege shows that some sectors of the population impose a voluntary curfew on themselves, yet few citizens have armed themselves. Some studies suggest that fear of crime is related directly to the instability of certain social groups, which is partially a result of industrialization.