112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
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CRIMINAL VICTIMISATION ACROSS THE GLOBE
Ugljesa Zvekic*
I. WHY THE INTERNATIONALCRIME VICTIM SURVEY
The potential of victim surveys forcomparative purposes led to the carryingout of the first International Crime Victim
Survey (ICS at the time, later renamed
ICVS), in 1989. A first proposal to organise
an international victimisation survey waslaunched by the OECD in the 1970s. Pilot
studies were carried out in the USA, theNetherlands and Finland. Further to ameeting of the Standing Conference ofLocal and Regional Authorities of theCouncil of Europe, held in 1987 inBarcelona, a working group was createdand started developing the survey
methodology and questionnaire. Sometwenty countries were invited toparticipate in a standardised victimisation
survey.
There were three main reasons forsetting up the ICVS. The first was related
to the enormous problems with offences
recorded by the police for comparing crime
in different countries. The second was thelack of any alternative standardised
measure, and the third was the promotionof the victim survey in countries that haveno, or only a meagre experience of it. All
the above-mentioned reasons are fully
applicable to countries in transition.
Police figures are inadequate forcomparative purposes because the majority
of incidents that the police become awareof are brought to their attention by victims,
and any differences in propensity to reportin different countries will influence thecomparability of the amount of crime
known by the police. Police figures varybecause of differences in legal definitions,recording practices, and precise rules forclassifying and counting incidents. Theselimitations are well known.
A number of industrialised countries
have launched crime or “victimisation”
surveys to gain a wider and betterknowledge of national crime problems and, to a great extent, the ICVS reflects
their approach and experience. Suchsurveys ask representative population
samples about selected offences they haveexperienced over a given time. They deal
with incidents that have, or have not, beenreported to the police and in particular,
with the reasons why people do or do notchoose to report them to the police. They
provide a more realistic record of the
population affected by crime and - if thesurveys are repeated - a measure of trends
in crime unaffected by changes in thevictims’ reporting behaviour, or byadministrative changes in recording crime.
Social and demographic information on the
respondents also provide an opportunity toanalyse types of crime risks and the way
they vary for different groups according toa number of factors, such as social status,
age, gender, etc.
The experience gained with national andlocal surveys called for a comparativeinternational survey in view of the fact thatthe number of countries with appropriate
surveys were limited, and the surveys useddifferent methods, thus making
comparison far from straightforward.1* Deputy Director, United Nations Interregional
Crime and Justice Research Institute, UNICRI.

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
II. THE ICVS TO DATE
There have been three rounds of the
ICVS. The first was developed by a
Working Group set up in 1987, leading tofieldwork early in 1989. Thereafter theWorking Group reformed, consisting of Jan
van Dijk (Ministry of Justice/ Universityof Leiden, the Netherlands; overall coordinator), Pat Mayhew (Home Office,United Kingdom), and Ugljesa Zvekic andAnna Alvazzi del Frate of the United
Nations Interregional Criminal Justice
Research Institute (UNICRI) in Rome.
The second ICVS took place in 1992/94,
and the third in 1996/97. In theindustrialised countries, each country met
its own survey costs, although much of theadministrative overheads of the ICVS
programme were borne by the Dutch
Ministry of Justice, which has alsosponsored survey activities in almost all
the developing countries and countries intransition. Further financial assistance
was provided by the Dutch Ministry ofForeign Affairs; the Home Office, UK; theDepartment of Justice Canada; theEuropean Institute for Crime Prevention
and Control (HEUNI); and UNDP. The
Working Group managed oversight of thesurveys, although a co-ordinator in eachcountry was responsible for the conduct offieldwork and, where necessary, for
ensuring a sound translation of thequestionnaire. The technical managementof most of the surveys in the industrialised
countries was carried out by InterView, aDutch survey company. InterView subcontracted fieldwork to survey companies
1

Differences in survey design and administrationinfluence both the amount and type of victimisation
measured. The technical differences at issue
include: the number of people interviewed in thehousehold; sampling frame and age range; mode ofinterviewer, “screening” methods and number of“screeners”, “recall” period; and respose rates.

152

in the participating countries, while
maintaining responsibility for thequestionnaire, sample selection andinterview procedures. UNICRI was
responsible for the face-to-facequestionnaire and for monitoring of the
ICVS in the developing countries andcountries in transition. The data from thesurveys were integrated and processed byJohn van Kesteren of the Criminological
Institute, Faculty of Law of the Universityof Leiden in the Netherlands.
Fifteen countries took part in the first(1989) ICVS, including the cities of Warsaw(Poland) and Surabaya (Indonesia). The
second (1992/94) ICVS covered elevenindustrialised countries, thirteen
developing countries and six countries intransition. Eight of the countries had taken
part in 1989. Full details of the 1989 and1992 surveys in industrialised countries
are reported in van Dijk et al., (1990) andin van Dijk and Mayhew (1992). Further
information and reports on the 1992 ICVS,
including six countries in transition, arepresented in Alvazzi del Frate et al. (1993).
The second (1992/94) round of the ICVS
expanded to include standardised surveys
in thirteen developing countries and six
countries in transition, mainly at the citylevel. These were taken forward largely by
UNICRI, which was keen to sensitise
governments of developing countries andcountries in transition on the dimensions
and extent of crime in their urban areas especially as police data on crime was often
poor. Results from the developing world arereported in Zvekic and Alvazzi del Frate(1995). After the second ICVS, aprogramme of standardised surveys ofcrime against businesses was also mounted
in nine countries. Comparative results arepresented in van Dijk and Terlouw (1996).
The third round of the ICVS was carriedout in 1996 and 1997 and encompassed

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
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eleven industrialised countries, thirteen
developing countries and twenty countries
in transition. Two volumes (Zvekic, 1998,
and Hatalak, Alvazzi del Frate and Zvekic,
1998) report the findings related tocountries in transition, while the resultsof the 1996 ICVS for industrialised

countries are reported in Mayhew and van
Dijk (1997) and, for developing countries,
in Alvazzi del Frate (1998). All in all, withthe 1996/97 ICVS, more than 130,000
people were interviewed in 40 languages
around the world.

TABLE 1
International Crime Victim Survey - Overview of Participation in
the 1989, 1992-94 and 1996-97 “Sweeps”
Industrialised Countries
Australia
Austria
Belgium
CanadaEngland & Wales
FinlandFranceGermany
Italy
Japan
Malta
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Northern Ireland
NorwayScotland
Spain
SwedenSwitzerland
USA

1989
＊

1992-94
＊

＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊

＊
＊
＊
＊

＊

＊
＊

＊
＊

＊

Countries in Transition
Albania
Belarus
Bulgaria
Croatia
Czech Republic
Estonia
F. R. of Yugoslavia
FYR of Macedonia
Georgia
Hungary
Kyrgyzstan
LatviaLithuania
Mongolia
PolandRomania
RussiaSlovak Republic
Slovenia
Ukraine1989

1992-94

1996-97
＊

＊
＊
＊
＊

＊
＊
＊
＊

＊
＊

＊
＊
＊

＊

＊
＊
＊
＊

＊
＊
＊
＊

＊
＊
＊
1996-97
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
TABLE 1 (continued)
Developing Countries
Argentina
Bolivia
Botswana
BrazilChina
Colombia
Costa Rica
Egypt
India
Indonesia
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
The Philippines
South Africa
Tanzania
Tunisia
UgandaZimbabwe

1989

1992-94
＊
＊
＊

＊

＊
＊
＊
＊
＊(°)
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊

1996-97
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊
＊

(°)Data set not available

III. SURVEY METHODSinterviewers of what happened. Therefore,
the ICVS accepts a broader definition ofcrime than the police who, once incidents
are reported to them, are likely to selectthose which merit the attention of thecriminal justice system, or meetorganisational demands and parameters toallow for further processing.

The ICVS was carried out by using two
main survey methods: computer assisted
telephone interviewing (CATI) and face-toface. As a rule, CATI was adopted in theindustrialised countries, with the exceptionof Northern Ireland (1989 and 1996), Spain(1993) and Malta (1997), and face-to-face
was used in the developing countries andEleven main forms of victimisation are
countries in transition, with the only
covered by the ICVS, three of which allow
exception being Slovenia (1992 and 1997).
for further grouping. Household crimes arethose which can be seen as affecting theA. Samplinghousehold at large, and respondents report
In all developed countries and in someon all incidents known to them. For
countries in transition, a national sample
personal crimes, they report on what
ranging between 1000 to 2000 respondents
happened to them personally.
was used, while in most developing
countries and countries in transition a city
Household Property Crimes:
sample of 1000 was used.
• theft of car• theft from cars
B. The Count of Crime• vandalism to cars
The ICVS enquires were about crimes• theft of motorcycles
against clearly identifiable individuals,• theft of bicycles
excluding children. While the ICVS looks• burglary with entry
into incidents which, by and large, accord• attempted burglary
with legal definitions of offences, in essence• robberyit accepts the accounts that the
respondents are prepared to give to the154112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
additional questions about what happened.

Personal Crime:• theft of personal• property pickpocketing• non-contact personal thefts• sexual incidents• sexual assaults• offensive behaviour• assaults/threats• assaults with force• assaults without force
In the surveys in developing countries
and countries in transition, consumer fraudand corruption were also covered.
Consumer fraud was asked about in theindustrialised countries in 1992 and 1996,
and corruption in 1996/97.
The respondents are asked first about
their experience of crime over the last five
years. Those who mention an incident ofany particular type are asked when it
occurred, and if in the last year, how manytimes. All victims reporting incidents overthe past five years are asked some

C. Translation of Questionnaire
In some countries the interviewers,
having to work in several local dialects,
were provided with the translation in thelanguage of the majority linguistic group;
while translations into dialects were
provided on the spot, that is to say, during
the interviewing process. It is difficult toassess to what extent this affected the
responses, but it does indicate the need for
closer monitoring and control of thetranslation procedure and reliability. Backand forth translation from the original
English into and from the language inquestion was carried out in a number ofcountries, both to ensure the adequacy oftranslation as well as to provide for themost appropriate native wording.
D. Carrying Out of the Full-fledged
SurveyData collection lasted from eight to ten
weeks in each country and was followed by

TABLE 2Aggregate Victimisation Rates by World Regions
ICVS (urban five year rates: 1988-96)
Total
Car crime
Burglary/attempt
Other theft
Violent crime
Violence (females)
Violence (males)
Any crime
Consumer fraud
Corruption

29.7
20.4
32.3
20.4
7.4
6.2
63.7
29.4
11.0

Western New
Latin
Europe World America
36.8
14.4
27.1
15.8
5.0
5.0
61.2
12.5
1.1

44.6
23.3
26.6
20.2
8.0
8.4
65.3
7.9
1.0

29.9
32.4
42.4
36.1
14.3
8.0
76.6
24.4
19.5

Countries
In
Transition
27.8
17.3
31.9
17.3
6.0
6.5
62.0
39.8
12.6

Asia

Africa

7.5
11.3
30.3
13.0
4.8
2.4
45.0
27.6
20.2

22.4
35.4
41.7
31.8
12.6
7.9
74.0
48.7
13.5

Note: Table elaborated from J.J.M. van Dijk. “Criminal victimisation: a global view”, paper presented
at the International Conference on Surveying Crime: A Global Perspective, Rome, 1998.

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
the data entry and logical validation
process. On average, fieldwork lasted fourmonths including translation of thequestionnaire, sampling, data collection
and preparation of the dataset for delivery.
A final report was prepared by eachnational co-ordinator.
The results are based on data whichhave been weighted to make the samples
as representative as possible of national
populations aged 16 or more in terms ofgender, regional population distribution,age, and household composition.
E. Face-to-face Interviewing
In most countries, the survey was
carried out by an ad hoc team ofinterviewers. On average, face-to-faceinterviews lasted thirty minutes and could
generally be understood by illiterate
respondents.
IV. CRIMINAL VICTIMISATION: AN
OVERVIEW
Criminal victimisation is a widespreadfeature of urban areas across the globe:
t h e r e i s n o c r i m e - f r e e c o u n t r y.
Victimisation by conventional crime iscommonly experienced by all nations andin particular, the inhabitants of large cities.
In this sense, criminal victimisation is a
global statistical norm. It is not a distinct
property of some countries only.
Irrespective of the part of the world, overa five year period, two out of threeinhabitants of large cities are victimisedby crime. It is particularly significant tonote that the victimisation rates arehighest in Latin America and Africa, while
they are the lowest in Asia. Countries intransition show rates remarkably similar
to those of Western Europe.
Specific crime victimisation rates suchas those for burglary, other theft andviolent crime are highest in Latin America
156

and Africa. In these two regions, the levelof violence is more than twice as high as
elsewhere but it is also high in the New
World (Australia, Canada, New Zealandand the USA); Western Europe and Asia
are less exposed to violent crime. Different
is the global pattern of distribution for car
related crimes for which the highest rates
are in the industrialised world. However,car owners risk of having their cars stolen,
burglarised and/ or vandalised are similar
across the globe (with the exception of Asia
where it is the lowest) but somewhat higher
in Africa. 2 Furthermore, the rates ofproperty crime have gone down orstabilised in several of the mostindustrialised countries. However, the riskof being victimised by violence across theworld is at least one in five.
As regards consumer fraud andcorruption in public administration it ismuch higher in the developing world andcountries in transition, adding additionalburden and cost of overall criminal
victimisation to people in less affluent
societies.3
Certain residential, age and gendergroups, as well as life styles, run higher
risks of criminal victimisation. While muchof it is circumscribed, gender differences
do appear to show somewhat more stabledifferential patterns. In the industrialised
world, men and women run similar levelof risk for assault. In other parts of theworld there are clear gender differences
putting women at a much higher risk ofbeing victimised by violence. Thus, while
men across the globe run a similar level ofrisk of being assaulted, the risks for womenin Latin America, Africa and Asia are fifty
percent higher 4. Furthermore, assaults on
women tend to be familial or domestic in
2
3

Van Dijk. “Criminal...”, ibid, table 2 note.
U. Zvekic, Criminal Victimisation in Countries inTransition. UNICRI Publ. No. 61, 1998.

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
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Crimes Reported to the Police in Three Global Regions: ICVS (1992-96)

Theft of car
Burglary
Theft from car
Assault with force
Robbery
Theft of Personal
Property
Sexual assault

Industrialised Countries
92.6
84.5
56.9
48.1
46.9
43.8

Countries in Transition
87.5
64.9
44.3
34.1
32.7
21.9

developing countries
89.5
47.4
41.8
36.2
34.2
19.2

26.8

21.3

22.4

the sense that in a third of the cases ofviolence against women, the offender was
known (even by name) to the victim.
Domestic violence is most often reported
by women in the New World and Western
Europe.5
Crime rates based on officials statistics
are universally lower than survey-based
victimisation rates. Therefore, differences
in officials crime rates among countries
have much to do, in addition to the crime
type, with the propensity to report crimes
to the police, and further down the criminal
justice road, police capacity to record them,and then the prosecution and courts
capacity to process the cases and charge/
sentence offenders. The attrition rates(capacity) of the criminal justice system iswidespread, and filtering out is a universal
process present in both mandatory as well
as discretionary criminal justice systems.
The first filtering out is to be looked for in
the relationship between citizens and thepolice. In no part of the world are all crimes
reported to or detected by the police, nor
are all those that are known to the police
passed on further down the road to resultin a criminal charge and court sentence.
In the majority of countries, around half ofthe suspects or those criminally indicted
are found guilty and subsequently
sentenced.6
In all the parts of the world, the mostfrequently reported crime is that of theftof car, with the reporting rates around 90%.
With the exception of burglary in theindustrialised world and countries intransition, as well as of theft from cars in
the industrialised world, all other crimes
in all three developmental categories arereported by less than half of the victims.
Particularly low are the reporting rates forsexual assault. In other words, less than
one in three female victims of violence
report their victimisation to the police.
It is evident that national and global
crime levels, as reported by the UNCJS(official statistics), are much lower than the“true” levels of crime, mainly due toreporting patterns. On average, crime
reported to the police continued to rise in
1980s and 1990s. “The most commonly
6

4

Van Dijk. “Criminal...”, supra.
5 A. Alvazzi del Frate, Victims of Crime in theDeveloping World, UNICRI Publ. No.57, 1998, pp.
69-71.

G. Newman, “Advance in Comparative
Criminology: The United Nations Global Report on
Crime and Justice” paper presented at theInternational Conference on Surveying Crime: A
Global Perspective, Rome, 1998.

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
TABLE 4
Percentage of Victims Satisfied with the Police upon Reporting an Incident
ICVS (1992-96)
Western Europe New World Countries in transition Asia
Burglary
67.8
74.4
37.8
42.2
Contact crimes
64.0
69.7
39.8
61.7
reported crime was theft, followed byburglary. Violent crime made up some 1015% of all reported crime” 7 . The
established reporting pattern is thatirrespective of crime type, there are muchhigher police reporting levels in theindustrialised world as compared withother parts of the world. This propensity
to report is related to a number of factors,
including as regards property crimes,
insurance coverage. The ICVS has clearly
demonstrated that the ratio between
average insurance coverage for theindustrialised world, on the one hand, andthe rest of the world, on the other, is thatof 70%: 10-15% (although the situation has
improved recently in countries intransition).
The propensity to report also has to dowith citizens’ evaluation of police
performance. This type of information is
not provided by the official criminal justicestatistics. The ICVS explored this issue tofind that there is proportionately more
victims of crime from the industrialised
world satisfied with the police upon
reprting a crime than it is the case withthe victims from other world regions whoreported an incident to the police.
Satisfaction with reporting to the police
shows a similar pattern of generalsatisfaction with the police in controlling
crime. The highest levels of satisfaction
with the police in controlling crime areexpressed by the citizens from the New
7

Van Dijk, “Criminal...”, supra.

158

Africa29.4
46.8

Latin America
24.6
34.2

World, Western Europe and Asia (74%, 50%
and 60% respectively). Much lower levelsof satisfaction are expressed by citizens
from Africa (41%) and particularly
dissatisfied are citizens from Latin America
and countries in transition (just around
20% are satisfied).
The analysis of the results of the United
Nations Survey of Crime Trends and the
Operation of Criminal Justice Systems 8shows that most countries tend to imprison
those offenders who were sentenced forserious crimes. Prison is the universal
sanction applied for serious offences, more
the any other sanction. This is regardlessof the type of legal system or level ofdevelopment of a country. There are also
wide variations in the prison rates ofvarious countries. However, thesevariations do not appear to be dependent
on the amount of crime in the society. Nordoes the use of non-custodial sanctions, theavailability and use of which are policy
choices. As a general pattern, greater useof non-custodial sanctions does not lead toless use of prison, or vice-versa. In thedeveloping world and countries intransition, the public displays a marked
preference for prison as a punishment.
There appears to be, however, a certain
similarity in comparative perspective
between the amount of prison actually used
and the preferences for types of8

H. Shinkai and U. Zvekic. “Punishment” in G.
Newman (Ed.) Global Report on Crime and Justice.
New York-Oxford, UN & Oxford University Press,
1999.

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
punishment. Punishment practice andpolicy do not appear to be grossly
determined by the developmental level ofthe country.
V. CRIME AND DEVELOPMENT IN
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
Without entering into by now acriminological common knowledge
regarding the main theories of crime anddevelopment, and in particular crime andmodernisation, the afore considerations
regarding crime levels and punishment
issue have clearly demonstrated that muchof the discussion on the relationshipbetween crime and development needs tobe revisited.
Much of the previous debate on crimeand development, originating with
Durkheim, was tested with official criminal
justice data on crime levels. In short (andwith a certain degree of simplification) they
appeared to confirm that the levels ofproperty crime are higher in moredeveloped societies than those of violent
crimes in less developed societies. Indeed,earlier UN reports based on UNCS also
supported this interpretation. However,integration of the UNCS and the ICVS data
casts serious doubt as to the above
relationship.
The first analysis of the ICVS results in1993 9 and 1995 10, when data from thedeveloping world and countries intransition were made available for the firsttime ever, indicated that the traditional
9

U. Zvekic, A. Alvazzi del Frate. “Victimisation in
the Developing World: An Overview” in A. Alvazzidel Frate, U. Zvekic, J.J.M. van Dijk (eds.)
Understanding Crime: Experiences of Crime andCrime Control, UNICRI Publ. No. 49, 1993.
10 U. Zvekic and A. Alvazzi del Frate. “Comparative
Perspective” in U. Zvekic and A. Alvazzi del Frate(eds.) Criminal Victimisation in the Developing
World. UNICRI Publ. No. 55, Part One, 1995.

interpretation of the relationship between
crime and development needs revisiting.
Subsequent analyses and in particular themost recent one by Van Dijk 11 of motivationand opportunity factors based on ICVS
showed that the levels of contact (violent)
crimes and thefts are higher in the
countries where a high proportion of people
feel economically deprived and that thelower affluence was associated with higher
risk of victimisation by more serious
crimes.
The ICVS data on victimisation rates fortheft of personal property, burglary andassault all reveal a negative correlation
with the UNDP Human Development
Index. The more developed the country, theless frequent victimisation for theft (-0.560
N=53), burglary (-0.422 N=53) and, to amuch lesser extent, assault (-0.113 N=53).
The Fifth UNICJS provides compatible
data for 1994 on intentional homicide andtheft12 from 28 countries ranging from themost to the least developed according to the
Human Development Index (HDI).13 By
correlating data for homicide and theft with
the HDI for the respective countries, apositive correlation with theft rates isfound (0.596 N=28), while a negative
correlation between homicide rates and
HDI is also found, although weaker (-0.204
N=28). 14

11 van Dijk, “Criminal...”, supra.
12 The UN Crime Survey categories used here are“total intentional homicide” and “total theft”.
13 The 1994 Human Development Index for the

responding countries is taken from Human
Development Report 1997,United Nations
Development Programme, Oxford University Press,
Oxford / New York, 1997.
14 The analysis of the correlation between data fromthe ICVS, the Fifth UN Crimes Survey and Human
Development Index is presented in A. Alvazzi delFrate, Victims of Crime in the Developing World,
UNICRI Publ. No. 57, 1998, pp. 133-138.

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
TABLE 5
United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice
Systems, Homicide and Theft Rates (1994) and UNDP Human Development
Index (1994)
Country NameJapan
England&Wales
Singpore
CanadaScotland
Malta
BelguinAustlia
Slovakia
Hungary
Denmark
Italy
Slovenia
IsraelRomania
India
Azerbaijan
Rep of Moldova
Costa Rica
Kyrgyzstan
Georgia
Kazakstan
Ecuador
Bolivia
Nicaragua
JamaicaKuawitColonbia

Homicide
Theft
Rates×100,000 pop. Rates×100,000 pop.
1.4
1,049.8
1.4
4,863.6
1.7
919.6
2.0
3,430.4
2.2
4,641.8
3.0
1,125.0
3.4
2,733.0
3.5
1,582.3
3.8
1,099.8
4.7
1,321.7
5.1
3,963.1
5.3
2,330.9
5.7
811.7
7.2
182.3
7.6
457.6
7.9
33.1
8.9
65.0
9.5
334.1
9.7
520.8
12.3
238.4
14.4
109.7
15.7
591.6
18.5
239.6
23.3
392.4
25.6
173.9
29.8
520.5
58.0
10.6
78.6
233.3

HDI 1994
0.940
0.931*
0.900
0.960
0.931*
0.887
0.932
0.932
0.873
0.857
0.927
0.921
0.886
0.913
0.748
0.446
0.636
0.612
0.889
0.635
0.637
0.709
0.775
0.589
0.530
0.736
0.844
0.848

Sources: Fifth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice System,
UNICJIN (rates elaborated by UNICRI); Human Development Report 1997, United Nations
Development Programme, Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York, 1997.

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112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
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Correlation with the Human Development Index (HDI)
Homicide-0.204Assault-0.113

Theft

0.596

Theft
Burglary

0.560-0.422

VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS
The above referred to results andconsiderations seriously challenge themodernisation theory, which as statedearlier, was empirically tested with police
reported figures, which are normally much
lower in less developed societies. The
empirical base for testing themodernisation theory was exclusively
composed of official criminal justicestatistics. The ICVS empirical base, whichis composed of victimisation data on
experiences with crime and reporting to thepolice, undermines the very foundations of
the prevalent crime and development
explanatory perspective.
Crime and justice appear to have adegree of independence from levels ofdevelopment more than previously
thought15. This is particularly evident withrespect to the following:• there is no strong evidence thatdeveloping countries have higher
violent crime rates than developed
countries; either they never had thembut data was restricted or in recent
years the levels have become quite
similar;• the assumption that the developed
world exhibits higher property crime
rates than developing countries
seems not to hold true, at least as
regards the urban areas;• all countries use imprisonment for
15 Newman, “Advances...”, supra.

serious offenders and the prison rates
are not generally related to crime
rates, the levels of socio-economic
development or to the use of noncustodial sanctions; yet, punishment
preference still reflects to a great
extent the affluence levels, the actualuse of imprisonment or shared belief
in “just deserts”.
Much of the previous discussion andrevisited modernisation theory is based oninterpretative integration of UNCS (official
criminal justice statistics) and ICVS
(victimisation survey-based data).
However, this is not sufficient to reveal
with any degree of reliability the “true”
empirically based historical relationshipbetween crime and development, since
there are no comparative international
historical victimisation survey data thatwould match those available through theofficial criminal justice statistics and theUNCS. Thus, one is tempted to credit the
globalisation process with effects reflected
in a certain degree of levelling off crime andjustice across the globe. While this mightprove to be true, in view of the fact that
the ICVS data used for comparative
analysis relate to urban areas only, andthus embedding urbanisation, (which
certainly is the trade-mark ofmodernisation all over the world). There
still is much to be desired in exploring the
globalisation-related conventional crime
effects.
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