Crime victimization in comparative perspective; Explaining Variation in Criminal Victimization around the World. The roles of individual and country characteristics

Eerste en zeer omvangrijk onderzoek naar crimineel gedrag in 60 landen, inclusief conclusies en vergelijkingen. Most studies on crime deal with a single nation, but this study reports on the situation in over 60 countries all across the globe from a comparative perspective. The book's 25 chapters by leading scholars in this research area describe differences in criminal victimization between individuals in various countries across the world. They present in-depth discussions of the current criminological theories explaining these differences. Moreover, the authors test the empirical tenability of these explanations by analysing data from the International Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS). The ICVS is the most far-reaching program of fully standardized sample surveys examining householders' crime experiences in various countries. Surveys were conducted in 1989, 1992, 1996 and 2000. At the moment, the ICVS includes data on more than 200,000 respondents in over 60 countries in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, North and South America, Asia, Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The authors focus on various topics related to crime victimization. The victimization risks of various types of crime -- e.g. property crime, violent crime, domestic violence, corruption -- and their correlations are discussed. Special attention is devoted to gender differences in crime victimization, and various responses to crime, e.g. reporting to the police, risk perception and fear of crime, are examined.