Exploration of the Determinants of Reporting Crime to the Police in the City of Tianjin, China

• NCJ Number: 221118
• Journal: Criminology Volume: 45 Issue: Number 4 Dated: November 2007 Pages: 959-984
• Author(s): Lening Zhang; Steven F. Messner; Jianhong Liu
• Date Published: November 2007
• Length: 26 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The study examined the determinants of crime reporting to police in contemporary urban China.

Abstract

The results replicate certain findings observed in the West. A consistent finding is that offense seriousness is a significant predictor of crime reporting for all the offenses studied: robbery/assault, personal theft, and household burglary. Offense seriousness as reflected in the presence of a weapon is associated significantly and positively with reporting of robbery/assault when other important correlates are controlled. Victims were more likely to report robbery offenses than assault offenses. Given that the category of assault includes simple assaults along with aggravated assaults, these latter findings also suggest a seriousness effect. Concerning reporting of personal theft, the only significant factor is offense seriousness, which is measured with respect to the estimated value of property stolen. Reporting of household burglary is also affected significantly by two measures of offense seriousness; one measure indicates whether any damage was done in the household, and another is the estimated monetary value of the property stolen in the household. In contrast to findings observed in the West, almost no individual-specific and household-specific factors are related significantly to reporting of any offense types studied. Only the measure of victimization experience has a significant negative effect on reporting of robbery/assault when other factors are controlled. Respondents with multiple experiences of victimization are less likely to report crime incidents to police. The negative relationship could reflect either a tendency for victims to become more hesitant to turn to the police as victimizations increase, or a protective effect of police reporting on future risks of victimization. Future research in China with more detailed data on the sequencing of victimizations and crime reporting is needed to untangle the nature of the causal processes that underlie the association observed in the analyses. Data were collected from a recent survey in Tianjin. Tables, figure, references