International crime victim survey 2005: Criminal victimization in Istanbul households

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the nature of criminal victimization in Istanbul. Face-to-face interviews were conducted using the standard ICVS questionnaire to a randomly selected sample of 1242 householders. Five-year victimization rates were found to be the highest for burglary and attempted burglary. One-year victimization rates for these two types of criminal victimization were higher than those for other European cities. It was found that rates of reporting the offenses to the police in Istanbul were comparably lower than in other European cities. Fear of crime was found to be comparably higher. The findings from Istanbul were discussed in the light of the international results.