Fear of Crime Determinants in Poland at the Covid-19 Pandemic: Empirical Assessment of Socio-Demographic and Economic Factors

Abstract

Purpose: The research paper explains to what extent sociodemographic, psychographic and economic determinants differentiate attitudes towards fear of crime in Poland at the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/Methodology/Approach: The results come from an empirical study conducted on a representative sample of adult Poles. The application of the methodology relates strictly to that recognized and used in empirical research. Computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) were used at the data collection stage. At the stage of data analysis, multi-dimensional modeling with the use of optimal scaling (CATREG) was selected and descriptive and inductive statistics were used. Findings: Polish society differs from other European societies in terms of fear of crime. Political worldview, religious beliefs, marital status, age and education are rare or unusual correlates of fear of crime but turn out to be very important in Poland. Only gender, in some extent – age and the state of prior victimization are similar in directions to other Western societies. Economic and geographic factors turned out to be weak and indirect or irrelevant and require further research. Practical implications: The results justify the claim about the relatively good condition of Polish society, fear of crime is low and unrelated to economic factors. As a practical result, social groups that required political actions to reduce their fear of crime and actions to increase awareness of the threat of crime were identified. Originality value: This is the first study of this type conducted in Poland for many years. As for originality in the research used CATI technique (in contrast to face to face interviews performing before), the widest set of independent variables in the Polish studies was examined – a set of numerous variables, views, attitudes, previous experiences related to crimes (victimization), social and economic status and indicators, including economic ones, related to the place of residence. As well as the method of categorical regression analysis, not yet used in the fear of crime studies.