Victimological Research in the Czech Republic. Important Information Source Concerning Criminality

Key words: victimological research, registered crime, latent crime, revictimization

Presented research carried out by the Institute of Criminology and Social Prevention is focused on investigation of the Czech Republic citizens´ victimization by eight delicts retrospectively during one year. The research goal was to obtain some information concerning selected delicts and their victims (incidence, repeated victimization /revictimization/, delict report to the police /latency/). The research was carried out in the end of the year 2013 on a representative sample of 3000 persons above 15 years of age from the whole of the Czech Republic. Some acquired data were compared with the data of a similar victimological research from the year 2010. It was evident from the acquired data in 2013 that persons effected by at least one delict from the eight monitored delicts included about 36 % of individuals of the sample. In 2013 out of eight investigated delicts majority of respondents were effected by thefts of personal things /without using violence/ (14,6 % of respondents), vehicle robberies (10,5 % of respondents) and  housebreakings (8,6 % of respondents). In 2013 in comparison to 2010 the number of the CR respondents effected by some of the eight investigated delicts significantly increased (about 5 %). According to statistics in the sample of respondents significantly increased the number of persons repeatedly victimized by the same delict from 7 % in 2010 to 10 %  in 2013. Police has been getting similar amount of information about investigated delicts from the inhabitants after the course of three years.

Milada Martinková

Institute of Criminology and Social Prevention, Prague, Czech Republic