NCJ Number
157963
Date Published
1995
Length
68 pages
Annotation
This analysis examined the statistics of petty crime, fear of crime and community problems, prevention efforts, and relations with the police in 31 Dutch cities.
Abstract
The statistics were derived from the "Politiemonitor Bevolking," a large-scale population survey conducted in 1993. In the petty crime category, the large cities (over 200,000 inhabitants) and medium-size cities (100,00 to 200,000 inhabitants) ranked especially high. Thus, the large cities also had the highest incidence of car theft. While no clear relation was shown between fear of crime and size of municipality, community problems (e.g., property crimes, traffic problems, and threats against individuals) were prominent in the large and medium-size cities. Surprisingly, the medium-sized communities took more preventive measures than the large cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht. In the 31 surveyed municipalities, the willingness to report crime was generally low, whereas the populations' image of the police varied widely from location to location. The survey concluded that the data, in combination with other local data, might suggest important directions to policy-makers. Statistical charts are appended