Criminal Victimisation in International Perspective

• NCJ Number: 222851
• Author(s): Jan van Dijk; John van Kesteren; Paul Smit
• Date Published: 2007
• Length: 293 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI); United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; Tilburg University
• Sale Source: Boom Juridische Unitgevers (Royal Boom Publishers)
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Statistics
• Language: English
• Country: Netherlands
• Note: Downloaded May 28, 2008

Annotation

This report presents key findings from the 2004-2005 International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS) and the European Survey on Crime and Safety (EU ICS) offering an international perspective on criminal victimization.

Abstract

Highlights of key findings include: (1) on average, an estimated 16 percent of the population have been a victim of at least 1 of any of 10 common crimes in the course of last year, 2003, or 2004; (2) on average, 1.8 percent of households have seen their houses burgled in the course of the last year; (3) theft of personal property has the highest victimization rate of the 10 common crimes under investigation; (4) on average, 1 percent of the population is victimized by robbery in countries and 2.4 percent in the main cities; (5) assault and threat is the most frequent of the 3 contact crimes with actual assaults making up less than half of the incidents; (6) the average of 15 countries shows a steady decline in victimization since the 1990s; (7) more than half of the 15 countries studied on trends in reporting show that reporting rates are going down for the combined crimes of theft from car, theft of bicycles, theft of personal property, and completed and attempted burglary; (8) those most likely to receive victim support are victims of sexual offenses (30 percent); and (9) levels of concern or fear of crime are correlated to actual burglary rates with concern most common among the public in Japan, Greece, and Italy and least common in Finland, Denmark, the United States, Sweden, and the Netherlands. These findings were the result of the crime victim surveys carried out by the International Crime Victim Surveys (ICVS) conducted in 2004-2005 with data derived from the European Survey on Crime and Safety (EU ICS).The ICVS and EU ICS cover 10 conventional crimes, broken down into vehicle related crimes, burglary, attempted burglary, theft of personal property and contact crimes. The report presents data from 30 countries and 33 main cities. Tables, figures, references, and appendix