Determinants of property crime victims to report to the police in Taiwan

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to examine the determinants that influence property crime victim reporting behavior using data collected from the 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey in Taiwan. By using a multi-stratified sampling procedure, data on 18,046 persons 12 years or older were collected through telephone interviews. We analyzed the determinants of victim reporting behavior and clarified the reasons for not reporting using five types of property crime − larceny, robbery, motorcycle theft, vehicle theft, and burglary, and constructed models to predict reporting for larceny, robbery, motorcycle theft, and burglary. We found that a very high percentage of vehicle theft was reported, approximately 94%, while larceny had the lowest reporting rate at 19.14%. Binary logistic regression analysis showed that crime incident variables were the major influences on reporting behavior for larceny, robbery, motorcycle theft, and burglary. Personal variables had a significant impact only on both larceny and robbery. Finally, environmental variables only affected motorcycle theft. In addition, the main reason for not reporting was ‘minor crime, minor loss, or loss of property having been recovered,’ namely, victims’ subjective and objective perceptions of the level of incident severity were the dominant determinant of property victim reporting behavior.