Citation

Avdija AS. Crim. Justice Stud. Crit. J. Crime Law Soc. 2019; 32(4): 317-329.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/1478601X.2019.1627531

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study examines the effect of witness-offender and witness-victim relationship on the willingness to report crime to authorities. The first objective of this study is to examine the difference between witnesses who know the offender and witnesses who do not know the offender in terms of their willingness to report crime to authorities, and to identify what factors affect such reporting behavior. The second objective is to examine whether or not there is a significant difference between witnesses who know the victim and the witnesses who do not know the victim, in terms of their willingness to report crime to authorities. This study uses a quantitative research method, and the data are analyzed using hierarchical regression. The findings of this research study are based on the analyses of the data that have been collected through a self-administered survey questionnaire distributed to 531 subjects. The results that emerged from this study show that if a witness of a crime does not know the offender or the victim, he/she is less likely to get involved in terms of reporting crimes to authorities compared to situations in which the witness knows the offender or the victim, or both.

Language: en

Keywords

Reporting of crimes; witness-offender relationship; witness-victim relationship