The Impact of Prior Victimization and Socio-Economic Status on People’s Crime-Reporting Behavior

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not prior victimizat ion, along with socio-economic status affect people's willingness to report crimes to authorities. This study is limited to addressing the effect of prior v ictimization on willingness to report crimes by 1) the type of victimizat ion (i.e., being a v ictim of property crimes or a victim o f crimes against persons), 2) being a vict im of a crime, regardless of the type of crime versus not being a victim, and 3) the difference in crime-report ing variation between the two. The findings of this research study are based on the analyses of the data that have been collected through a self-admin istered survey questionnaire distributed to 531 undergraduate university students. Overall, the findings that emerged fro m this study suggest that prior victimizat ion cannot be considered a good predictor of crime -reporting behavior.