engleski

Willingness to report crime in relation to experience of contact with police in Serbia and Croatia.

Numerous research show that trust in police has important role on decision of victim or witness of criminal offence to report it. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the willingness to report criminal offences in hypothetical situations is different with regards to police behaviour towards respondents during their last contact and whether this willingness differs in Croatia and Serbia. The research was conducted on convenience sample of 227 students from Croatia and 222 from Serbia by using the survey quantitative method. Ten hypothetical situations were described to respondents where they had to picture themselves either as a victim or a witness of particular crime and assess their willingness to report it. ANOVA statistical analysis shows significant differences in willingness to report in relation to police behaviour during the last contact. The results indicate the importance of police behaviour towards citizens and have practical implications in preventive actions and encouraging reporting of crimes.

reporting crimes, victim, witness, police, Croatia, Serbia

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