NCJ Number
72722
Date Published
1979
Length
21 pages
Annotation
A victim survey of representative samples of the Dutch population attempts to establish which groups are most affected by crime, which groups are likely to be victims, and whether the groups overlap.
Abstract
The survey is motivated by a desire to assess the extent of crime and general crime reporting behavior not ascertainable through police statistics. Report data derive from questionnaires administered in 1974 to a random sample of 10,000 18-to-25-year-olds from communities with police forces (with 47 percent resonse) and from 1975 interviews with respondents of the first survey. The accuracy of the procedure was tested in a reverse record check. Results show an average of 1.987 offenses per victim in 1973, most of them property crimes. Men, young individuals, single or divorced persons, students, professionals, and urban dwellers are the most frequently victimized groups. Reports of behavior vary from 4 to 100 percent, depending on the seriousness of the crime, subjective attitudes toward crime seriousness, financial damages involved, and amount of anger caused by the particular offense. Both police statistics and victim surveys are in need of correction. On one hand, police statistics must be dusted to differences in crime definitions and to lack of data on corporate victimization, attempted crimes, juvenile crime, crimes not commited in a given locale, and population not officially registered. On the other hand, victim surveys must be corrected because of respondents' failure to understand which actions are illegal, retrospective inaccuracies, crimes committed outside the area, crimes involving several victims and recorded several times, population changes in the survey period, and lack of uniformity in crime classification. On an average, the real crime rates are estimated at 6.7 to 7.4 times larger than police statistics show. Low reporting rates are attributed to a spiral resulting from inadequate crime control: crime solution rates sink, public trust and crime reporting diminishes, and police effectiveness drops still further. Lack of public trust can lead to illegal retributive acts and law and order movements. However, improved reporting behavior would probably only increase the number of unsolvable minor crimes, making police look still worse. Preventive measures should be developed instead. Tables, notes, and a bibliography containing 18 entries are supplied.