NCJ Number
102958
Date Published
1986
Length
278 pages
Annotation
This 1985 study of residents' criminal victimization and views of policing was based on door-to-door interviews with just over 2,000 households in Islington, an inner-city borough of London, England.
Abstract
The survey solicited residents' views of the police and their effectiveness; their victimization by such crimes as burglary, robbery, sexual assault, racist attacks, and domestic violence; and their reporting of crimes to the police. The burglary rate in Islington was five times the national average, and 50 percent of the households were victimized in the previous year. Residents viewed crime as a neighborhood problem second only to unemployment in its impact on the community. More than 50 percent of the women interviewed did not leave home after dark because of the fear of attack. More than 60 percent of the respondents perceived the police as ineffective in dealing with mugging, burglary, and sexual assault. Only 50 percent of the crimes experienced by respondents were reported to the police, and only 3.8 percent of the crimes were detected by the police. Based on these findings, the study recommends that the police in urban areas focus on controlling crimes with high social impact, such as burglary and sexual assault, and give less emphasis to low impact crimes such as prostitution and cannabis possession. A principal recommendation is that the police and community organizations develop cooperative approaches to crime control. Tabular data and 75-item bibliography.