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Przestępczość nieujawniona. Porównanie polskich rezultatów ICVS '86 i '92

100%

Siemaszko A.

Archiwum Kryminologii

1998

issue XXIII-XXIV

45-74

Poland participated in all the three ICVS series conducted so far, and research was each time carried out by the Law Enforcement Institute. However, due to Poland’s underdeveloped telephone network, only the 1989 (Warsaw) survey used the method of telephone interview. The next two series, of l992 and 1996, examined relative big and carefully selected national samples of households (of assumed over 2 thousand respondents in 1992 and over 4 thousand in 1996), but the traditional face-to-face method was used. The field survey was carried out by renowned opinion survey centers supervised by the Institute. Particularly worth stressing is the fact that Poland was probably the only country involved in ICVS where surveys started exactly on time. It should also be added that we achieved more than satisfactory completion rates: the proportion of refusals was about 5% in 1992 and 14% in 1996, and thus much smaller compared to survey using the CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interview) method. This of course influenced the quality of our findings. In 1995, Polish people most often fell victim to consumer offenses (14.2%) and carbreaking (10.1%). Rather high were also the proportions of interntional car damage (9.6%) and theft of personal property (5.6%). In the remaining cases, victimization coefficients never went beyond 5%. Compared to 1991, victimization structure underwent no greater changes. Of the 13 types of offenses examined, only 5 showed increases or decreases by more than 1% in the proportion of victims; the biggest change was 2.6% which was in practice still within the bounds of measurement error. Generally it seems, therefore, that in l991 and l995 unreported crime became stabilized in Poland as opposed to reported crime which in most cases still shows rather a strong upwards trend. Thus while robbery rate was 1.7 in 1991, the 1995 rate was higher by a mere 0.1% and amounted to 1.8. It should be added, though, that also our findings confirm the thesis as to a growing brutality of robbery and a change in the perpetrators’ modus operandi. For example, the proportion of robberies committed by one person went down from 25.2 to 18.8%. Besides, a larger proportion of respondents said to robbers had been armed. Also the „effectiveness” of robbery went up: a greater proportion (43.6 compared to 37.7%) stated that the robbers had actually managed to steal something. On the other hand, though, which is against expectations, also the proportion of statements as to robbers being armed went down. To our great surprise it appeared, too, that among the 13 countries participating in the survey (where ICVS '96 was carried out on the national sample) Poland had the highest robbery rate. The rate of batterics (attempts) went down from 4.2 in 1991 to 3.7 in 1995, that is by 0.5%. Yet characterization of those acts would be incomplete if we failed to mention that, in that same period, the proportion of batteries by assailants armed with dangerous weapons or firearms went up from 6 to 20.6%, and the weapons or firearms were actually used in 35.2% of cases. The more serious nature of batteries is also manifested by a considerable growth in the number of cases in which the victims needed a doctor: 32.8% in 1995 compared to 22.4% in 1991. As opposed to robbery, though, the battery rate in Poland is among the relatively low. Reduced most among acts with the element of aggression in years under comparison was the number of sex ofenses: from 3.6% in 1991 to 1.5% in 1995, that is by 2,1% (the difference being significant). It should be mentioned, though, that while none of the victims of this kind of act actually called it rape in 1992, the proportion of such persons was as much as 7% in the most recent survey. There was at the same time a rather considerable drop (by over 7%) in the number of victims who called the act ,,indecent assault”. Thus also the structure of this kind of acts underwent a specific change. What can be treated as indirect indication of seriousness of sex offenses are also statements as to criminal nature of the act (,,Do you consider the act an offense?”). Also those statements („Yes” answers) confirm the drop in the number of more serious acts of this kind (from 6.1% in 1992 to 53.5% four years later). Also reduced (by over 10%) was the proportion of statements as to serious or very serious nature of the incident. The relatively small danger of sex offenses in Poland is confirmed by confrontation with international data: in three countries only, the proportion of victims of such acts is smaller than in Poland. The growth of car sales situates Poland among European leaders. It was therefore interesting to find out about the impact of the growing number of cars on offenses ,,against cars”. According to the criminal opportunity theory, a considerable growth in the numer of such offenses could be expected, caused by increased ,,supply”. It appeared, however, that the growing number of cars failed to bring about any significant growth in the number of offenses against cars. Proportions of victims of car theft and intentional car damage (among car owners) went up in the period under analysis by a mere 0.1% (from 1.4% to 1.5% and from 9.5% to 9.6% respectively); in the case of victims of carbreaking, the proportion went down by 0.4% (from 10.5% to 10.1%). From comparison with international data on offenses ,,against cars'' it follows that Poland is among countries with medium-level threat of car theft; instead, the threat of car-breaking and international damage to cars is above the average, Poland ranking second and fourth respectively. Greater changes were found in the cases of one-track vehicles: motor-cycles and bicycles. In both cases, the numer of victims went down: by 1.8% in the case of motorcycle thefts, and by 1.1% in the case of bicycle thefts; it is worth stressing that the drop was significant. In most countries under research, thefts of one-track vehicles, bicycles in particilar, are a much greater problem than in Poland. Among the analyzed acts against property, the greatest drop (by 2.5% which makes the difference significant) was found in the case of the number of victims of theft of personal property. A sub-category of this group was pocket-picking inquired about by a filtering question. Worth stressing here is a drop in proportion of pocket-picking among thefts of personal property: from 83.2% in 1991 to 71.3% four years later, that is by over 10%. However, Poland is stil among countries with the greatest threat of thefts of personal property, pocket-picking included (which is rather understandable the fact considered that most Polish people still carry cash instead of a credit card). There was also a slight downward trend in the proportion of victims of housebreaking, both attempted (by 0.5%) and committed (by 0.1%). The proportions of victims of housebreaking (attempted and committed) situate Poland among countries with a medium-level threat of that type of offense. Compared to the previous survey. There was a considerable growth (by 2.6% which makes the difference significant) in the number of victims of consumer frauds. Instead, the number of victims of corruption of State officials went down by 0.7%. As follows from comparisons with international data, Poland is among the countries with the highest threat of such acts. Particularly alarming is the fact of as high a level of corruption in both post-communist countries included in the sample: in Poland and Czech Republic alike, that level is several times higher compared to the remaining countries. Similar trends can generally be found in a comparison of numbers of offenses per l00 respondents; here, however, differences in dynamics of individual offenses can be noticed with greater clarity. Striking is also a growth in the rate of batteries (attempts): from 6.7 in 1991 to 7.4 in 1995. The general victimization risk index is now 23 in Poland; it was 27 in the previous survey which means a drop by 4 points. From a comparison of that index with its foreign counterparts it follows clearly that the general extent of crime is not too big in Poland. At any rate, Poland is below the average of 11 Western countries of which 3 only (Finland, Austria and North Ireland) have indices lower than the Polish one. Yet underlying this apparent stabilization of unreported crime in the discussed period is a rather considerable growth or drop in the numer of repeated victims. Thus the proportion of repeated victims (respondents who fell victim to a given type of offense on at least two occasions during the last 12 months) went up in the case of car thefts by 9.1; in the case of car-breaking – by as much as 15.1; in the case of international damage to car – by 4.7; in the case of theft of personal property – by 8.2; in the case of burglary - by 4.9; in the case of robbery - by 9.7; and in the case of battery (attempt) – by 8.1. The only proportions that showed a downward trend were those of victims of motorcycle theft (by l0.2); bicycle theft (by 1.1); and sex offences (by 13.2). This is therefore a significant growth in concentration of crime (a greater numbers of acts against those same persons). Interestingly, the direction of the trend is not always the same in the case of one-time and repeated victims. For example, the proportion of victims of car-breaking went down by 0.4 in the period analysis while that of repeated victims went up by over 15. Differences in the dark number between individual offenses are very big. As follows from the findings of the Polish part of ICVS ’96, they range from nearly 100% (in the case of consumer frauds),to under 10% (in the case of car thefts). Besides, against expectations, the dark number was by no means the highest in the case of sex offences (it was very high, though: 88%). Generally it can be stated that the lowest dark number is found in the case of willful taking of property of considerable value, that is car and motor-cycle thefts, burglaries and bicycle thefts (7.2%, 21%, 45.7% and, 55.2% respectively). Seldom reported, instead, are thefts of personal property: the dark number is here nearly 80%. Also robbery and battery have a high dark number of 62.5% and 68.8% respectively. The dark number is definitely the highest (nearly 100%) in the case of the above-mentioned consumer frauds and corruption. As regards the inclination to report an offense, differences between the findings of the 1992 and 1996 survevs were greater but by no means explicit. Generally, there was an increase in the numer of reported aggressive offenses: batteries (by 6.4%); robberies (by 6.1%); and sex offenses (3.6%). The opposite trend was found in the case of reported thefts. The greatest was the drop in reported motor-cycle thefts (by 10.1%) and carbreaking (by 8.6%; here, the difference was significant). The proportion of reported bicycle thefts went down by 2.2%; that of cars – by 0.2%; and that of thefts of personal property remained unchanged. There was, instead, a rather considerable growth in the proportion of reported damages to car (by 3.2%) and burglaries (by 6.1%). The dark number of offenses is still very high in Poland, much higher than in the West. There, the average proportion of reported offences in the groups of six acts under analysis amounts to 50; in Poland, it is merely 34. This means that police data on crime in Poland are not too reliable as they say very little about its actual extent. Compared to the previous survey, the people's feeting of safety increased rather considerably which may also indirectly confirm the thesis that generally, there is no actual growth in crime in Poland. There was a growth by 11 points in the proportion of respondents who said they felt safe strolling in their neighborhood after dark; the proportion of those who said they avoided specific streets for reasons of safety dropped by one-third; and the proportion of persons who considered it highly probable that they would fall victim to burglary during the next 12 months was reduced by half. Despite the rather explicit growth in the Poles' feeling of safety, there was also a most considerable growth in their critical opinions on police work. Thus the proportion of respondents who consider police actions to control crime ineffective went up by a half. Respondents also spoke of fewer policemen patrolling the streets: the proportion of those who said that a police patrol turned up in their neighborhood at least once a day went down from 27.5 top 23.3. Mentioned more often among reasons for not reporting an offense was idleness of the police. Persons dissatisfied with the treatment they received from the police prevailed among those of the victims who had reported the last offense against them. The proportion of the satisfied was the highest among victims of reported battery: 40%. Among victims of reported robbery, instead, the proportion of those satisfied with the treatment they received from the police was somewhat under 30%. Worth mentioning in this context is also a considerable drop in effectiveness of police work as regards regaining of stolen cars. While the 1992 findings indicated a satisfactory effectiveness in this respect (in 77.4% of cases, the owners got their stolen car back) there were a mere 45.l% of such cases in the 1996 survey. Crowning this definitely unfavorable appraisal of police work is the nearly three times' growth in the number of persons who mentioned police officers among officials demanding a bribe (31.9% compared to previous 11.4%). It appears, therefore, that stable crime and growing feeling of safety is not accompanied - as one might expect – by more favorable appraisals of police work. This results probably from the fact that the people's expectations in this respect went even higher up since 1992.

Rozmiary i uwarunkowania zachowań dewiacyjnych młodzieży wiejskiej

100%

Siemaszko A.

Archiwum Kryminologii

1986

issue XIII

7-108

In the years 1978-1979, a study of the extent and causes of deviant behaviour in older schoolchildren was carried out in Warsaw which included three thousand persons. boys and girls. Since there was a lack of comprehensive studies of the extent and causes of social maladjustment of the rural, youth in Poland' it was decided that this study should be repeated in typically agricultural regions. The study, carried out in late l981, was aimed at the following: to construct a Polish version of the self-report delinquency scale, to estimate the extent of deviant behaviour in the analyzed populations, and to determine the variables particularly closely related to deviant behaviour. The stratified random sample consisted of 2,144 persons (1,7O2 boys and 429 girls). They were students of 86 different grades of various secondary schools, and were aged 14- 19. The study was carried out by an anonymous questionnaire which contained 124 questions; among them. there were 42 questions - about the various types of deviant behaviour, while the remaining ones concerned the separate groups of independent variables. The data on the following groups of independent variables were collected:1. the attitudes towards the family, the past and present and future family situation, and the character of interactions within the family; 2. deviance in the environment; 3. the attitudes towards friends, the character of interactions with friends and the intensity of bonds with the reference groups; 4. the attitudes towards school and the learning progress; 5. attitudes towards the legal norms; 6. the appraisal of life prospects and of the chances for fulfilment of aims and aspirations by means of legitimate methods; 7. the system of values, outlook on life and attitude towards moral norms; 8. engagement in social, cultural and sports activities and the like. A distinct group were the so-called alcohol variables, analyzed separately and the socio-demographic variables. Moreover, the questionnaire contained a ninc-question lye scale. The dependent variable was an index of 42 questions about various types of deviant behaviour. The possible answers to all the questions were indentical: "never", "once or twice", "several times", "a dozen or more times" and "more often". The sum of the respondents' affirmative answers to the questions about deviant behaviour formed the so-called variety scale. The frequency scale resulted from summing up all types of answers to each of the questions. Since the correlation between the scales of variety and frequency exceeded r :0.90, the variety scale was used in the analysis. This was due to its simplicity and a greater easiness of statistical interpretation. Three groups of deviant behaviour were distinguished for the purposes of the analysis. The first of them were manifestations of behaviour given a working term of insubordination. Though not forbidden by the law, such behaviour is improper in consideration of age or represents a challenge to the authority of the parents" guardians. teachers etc. For instance. the following types of behaviour were included here: staying away from home all night without the parents' consent. running away from home, or smoking before the age of 14. The second group were acts of "dishonesty" also not penalized as a rule– e.g. failure to give a lost thing back to its owner, or steadling rides. The third and most important group were acts that bore the character of transgressions or offences. Among others, this category included brawls. beatings and other offences against person. robbery thefts. breaking and entering, receiving stolen property, and other offences against property. The examined young persons committed the following acts, most frequently: smoking before the age of 14. stealing rides. failure to give the change left from shopping back-to the parents (over 80f of affirmative answers), failure to give the change back to a shopkeeper, failure to give back a found object (over 70% of affirmatie answers). misdemeanour at school. beating. participation in a brawl (over 50% of affirmative answers). Most seldom they admited taking drugs, picking public telephones and slipping out of a pub without paying the bill (less than 10%, of the examined persons). Generally, about 35% of the examined boys (i.e. 583 persons) admitted having committed at least once a half of the, 42 acts included in the questionnaire. over 20% of boys had a high, and 7.7% a Very high level of deviance. In the Warsaw study. a very high level of deviance was found in 6.1%, of boys. Therefore, the percentage of boys with a high level of deviance is similar in both studies and nearing other Polish estimates of the extent of social maladjustment of the school youth. In the present study, hypotheses were verified which were derived from some of the most popular theories of deviance: i.a., Sutherland's theory of differential associations, Hirschi's control theory, Merton's aims – means theory, (and the related conceptions of Cloward and Ohlin), Sykes and Matza's theory of neutralization. Also certain hypotheses were verified indirectly that were derived from the Gluecks' multifactor conception and the labeling theory: The major findings were as follows: Family situation Four items of the questionnaire made together the scale of ties with the family. These were the following questions: "Do your parents try to understand your problems?'', "Do your parents trust you?, ,,Do you generally like to discuss your plans with your parents?", "Do you trust your parents?". The scale of family ties revealed a rather high negative correlation with the deviance scale (r = -0.34 for boys and. R = -0.28 for girls). It appeared that the lesser the sense of ties with the parents. the higher the tendency to deviant behaviour. Two questions concerned the general apprasal of the atmosphere at home and the degree of the respondents' identification with their families. A strong interdependence was found between the way of defining the atmosphere- at home and the level of deviance. .The respondents who scored highest on the deviance scale, defined their atmosphere at home as bad several times more frequently, and much more seldom as good or very good, as compared with the others. As regards the question whether the respondents would like their own future families to be similar to their parental homes, the distribution of answers was alike. Among the respondents who would not like it at all or rather would not like it, there were nearly three times more of those who scored highest on the deviance scale. The global index of the attitude towards the family (constructed with the answers to all questions concerning the ties and identification with the family) revealed a negative and rather high correlation with the deviance scale, both in the case of boys (r = -0.30) and of girls (r = -0.26). Thus it appeared that deviant behaviour is inversely related to family ties and identification. Those of the examined persons who revealed a nelative attitude towards their families scored significantly higher on the scale of deviance as compared with those whose appraisal of their homes was favourable. Deviance of the environment and attitudes towards friends There were four questions that concerned deviance in the environment, one of which ("Has any member of your closest family ever been convicted by the court?'') concerned the perceived intensity of deviance in the family. Both the boys and the girls whose family member had a criminal record had the highest level of deviance. This finding is of a great theoretical as well as practical value since it demonstrates the groundlessness of the frequently accepted assumption that the family is always the source of pro-social patterns of behaviour. Three questions concerned deviance of the environment, their construction aimed at reflecting various aspects of the problem both as regards the subjective and the objective point of view: the different intensity of deviance and range of environment. The questions were: "Did you ever happened to have problems at school, boarding-school or at home because of your friends?'', "Did any of your acquaintances have a case in a juveni1e court or court of general criminal jurisdiction?", "Are there many young persons in your environment who have troubles with the police?". The distribution of answers to these questions markedly differentiated the examined populations in respect to deviance. In the groups distinguished according to their level of deviance significant differences could be found as far as the deviance of the environment is concerned. The respondents whose level of deviance was the highest appeared to move significantly more often with decidedly negative circles. A scale of deviance in the environment was constructed of the above questions. Of all the scales included in the study, this one showed the highest correlation with deviant behaviour, both in the case of boys (r = 0.56) and of girls (r = 0.36). Instead, the distribution of answers to the questions about emotional ties with the reference groups, the degree of identification with these groups and the emotional stability failed to differentiate the examined populations in respect of the degree of deviance; this finding was a surprise. Attitudes towards the law There were three items in the questionnaire that concerned the attitude towards the law: "The law should be observed"; "Most of the acts people term offences actually cause no harm at all to anybody''' and "In order to get a position in life, lawless behaviour is indispensable"; the latter two were at the same time an operationalization of the Sykes and Matza's techniques of neutralization. Opinions denying or aggreeing with the statement concerning the harmlessness of offences were the 1east important in the differentiation of the examined populations in respect to the level of deviance. This variable was also least correlated with the general scale of altitudes towards the law. On the other hand, the remaining two variables of this groups did differentiate the respondents well in respect of the level of deviant behaviour. The most discriminating was the question in what situations the law should be observed. The respondents who were\of opinion that "law should always be observed irrespective of the situation'' appeared to reveal the lowest level of deviance. Instead, among the resolute legal nonconformists (,,you can break the law whenever you are certain that you will escape punishment"), those prevailed who scored highest on the deviance scale. The scale of attitudes towards the law was moderately but significantly correlated with the deviance scale, though the relationship of the presently discussed scale with that of deviance was less marked than it was the case with the scales of deviance of environmental and of the attitudes towards the family. The perceived life-chances and material situation Two of the questions concerned the perceived life prospects that can be fulfilled by legitimate means: "what is your estimation of your life prospects as compared with those of the others?", and "Will you be able to get a good job after school?". The differences in the distributions of answers to the above questions in respect of the level of deviance were not great; however. they were significant. The "worst" respondents somewhatimore often had pessimistic, and the "best" ones - optimistic views. However, the constructed index of legitimate opportunities (which consisted of the above two questions failed to reveal a significant relation to deviant behaviour. This means that the sense of blocked opportunities for promotion and success (operationalized as above) is not related to deviant behaviour. The more so as the question about the respondents' estimation of their family material standing - though it differentiated the answers in respect of the level of deviance - also revealed a very small correlation with the scale of deviance (about 0.10). Perception of life prospects and opportunities was also analyzed from a somewhat different point of view. Namely, the respondents were asked whether in their opinion connections were necessary to get a god job. and whether it was possible to succeed in life through good honest work. These questions composed the variable "illegitimate opportunities". Constructed so as to make it complementary in relation to the variable "legitimate opportunities". An attempt was also made to ascertain to what degree this variable was correlated with the attitude towards the law. The questions about the chances of fulfilment of success goals through illegitimate means differentiated the examined populations in respect of the level of deviance. The "worst" respondents stated significantly more frequently that honest work did not lead to success in life. and that connections were necessary to get a good job. It was interesting to find that the variable "illegitimate opportunities'' was moderately correlated both with the attitude towards the law and with the "legitimate opportunities''. It was a moderately good predictor of deviant behaviour since it was correlated with the deviance scale at about 0.20 for boys as well as for girls. Values, moral principles and outlook on life Values treasured most frequently (love, friendship. happy home - over 75% (of all choices) failed to differentiate the examined populations in respect of their deviance. Of the remaining ten values, deep religious faith was chosen most frequently by the "best'' respondents, and acquiring individuality as well as learning to "be oneself' - by the ,,worst'' ones. The question about the stability of moral principles (three "types" of morality were distinguished: strict, situational and nihilistic) completely failed to differentiate the group of respondents Separated according to their Scores on the scale of deviance. There were among the moral nihilist as many of the "worst" as of the "best" respondents. The possible answers concerning the attitude towards religion ranged from: "I 'm a decided adherent of secular views" to: "I'm deeply religious". Generally speaking. This question provided but a poor differentiation in respect of the level of deviance. Since nearly 90% of the examined persons were at least "not-Church-going believers". Those of the examined persons who were deeply religious were an exception. In this group, the level of deviance of this group was decidedly the lowest. Involvement in conventional activities Of the three questions about activities consistent with the norms (active participation in youth organizations, hobbies, participation in organized leisure activities), none appeared to differentiate the examined group in respect of the level of deviance. Instead, the questions about school achievements ("Are you a good, bad or average student?") and about learning motivation ("What is for you the importance of being a good student?") were strongly related to deviance. The "worst" respondents much more often declared themselves to be bad students and admitted not caring about learning. At the same time, the variable of motivation was a much better predictor of deviance (r= -0.27) than the actual learning achievements (r= -0.11). Of the considered models of deviance, the most strongly confirmed was the theory of differential associations. This may be concluded from the following premises. Firstly, the variable of "devince of the environment'' and its separate elements revealed the highest correlation with the deviance scale. The test of significance of the differences of the value of correlation coefficients justifies the rejection of the null hypothesis as to their random character. Both the question about deviance among the closest friends, and those about deviance in a broader surroundings. revealed a much stronger correlation with deviant behaviour than the remaining variables. Also the question about deviance in the family appeared relate to deviant behaviour. In the light of the results obtained, not only a deviant peer group, but also a deviance in the family seem to be conducive to deviance. The adherents of the opinion that deviance precedes deviant associations would find it difficult to argue that it was the deviance in the examined persons that led to deviance in their families. Also the way in which the variable ,, deviance of the environment" is correlated with other variables speaks against the opinion that deviance precedes deviant associations since this variable a also revealed rather high correlation with deviant attitudes, the attitude towards learning at school and towards the family. Moreover, the relationship between the variable "deviance of environment" and ,,deviant behavior” was found to increase with age which is consistent with the known of importance of peer groups in the life of youths and their growing effect. On the other hand the result in question is difficult to interpret in the terms of alternative hypotheses: the "criminal tendencies" or ,.deviant impulses’’ should after all be constant and do not change with time. Still another finding should be mentioned here. In spite of the fact that girls generally have stronger ties with their parents as compared with boys, the correlation of the attitudes towards the family with deviant behaviour was found to be smaller in the group of girls than in the group of boys. Instead, against expectations, the deviance of the environment also revealed the highest correlation with deviant behaviour in the group of girls. Hirschi's control theory was much less confirmed by the findings of the present study. Of the four elements of bonds only the attachment to the, parents were rather strongly supported. On the other hand, hypotheses derived from the remaining elements of Hirschi.s conception were not confirmed at all (e.g. no confirmation at all was found of Hirsci’s argument that high degree of involvement in conventional types of activity is negatively related to deviance) or confirmed but to a small extent (e.g. the relationship between the school achievements and deviance). Besides the attitudes towards the family, only the attitude towards learning at school proved to be consistent with Hirschi's theory. On the other hand, in spite o| the principal hypothesis of the control theory the most isolated respondents failed to reveal a significantly higher level of deviance. Thus the conception of a solitary deviant promoted by Hirschi appears not tanable in the light of the obtained results. To sump up, if one had to decide basing on the findings of the present study which of the discussed theories was confirmed to a greater degree, it could be concluded that the theory of differential associations was confirmed to greater extent than Hirschi's control theory. On the other had, the results of the study do not seem to speak for Merton’s aims-means theory or the conception of differential opportunities of Cloward and Ohlin. Also some of the statements of the labelling approach failed to find confirmation.

In the years 1978-1979, a study of the extent and causes of deviant behaviour in older schoolchildren was carried out in Warsaw which included three thousand persons. boys and girls. Since there was a lack of comprehensive studies of the extent and causes of social maladjustment of the rural, youth in Poland' it was decided that this study should be repeated in typically agricultural regions. The study, carried out in late l981, was aimed at the following: to construct a Polish version of the self-report delinquency scale, to estimate the extent of deviant behaviour in the analyzed populations, and to determine the variables particularly closely related to deviant behaviour. The stratified random sample consisted of 2,144 persons (1,7O2 boys and 429 girls). They were students of 86 different grades of various secondary schools, and were aged 14- 19. The study was carried out by an anonymous questionnaire which contained 124 questions; among them. there were 42 questions - about the various types of deviant behaviour, while the remaining ones concerned the separate groups of independent variables. The data on the following groups of independent variables were collected:1. the attitudes towards the family, the past and present and future family situation, and the character of interactions within the family; 2. deviance in the environment; 3. the attitudes towards friends, the character of interactions with friends and the intensity of bonds with the reference groups; 4. the attitudes towards school and the learning progress; 5. attitudes towards the legal norms; 6. the appraisal of life prospects and of the chances for fulfilment of aims and aspirations by means of legitimate methods; 7. the system of values, outlook on life and attitude towards moral norms; 8. engagement in social, cultural and sports activities and the like. A distinct group were the so-called alcohol variables, analyzed separately and the socio-demographic variables. Moreover, the questionnaire contained a ninc-question lye scale. The dependent variable was an index of 42 questions about various types of deviant behaviour. The possible answers to all the questions were indentical: "never", "once or twice", "several times", "a dozen or more times" and "more often". The sum of the respondents' affirmative answers to the questions about deviant behaviour formed the so-called variety scale. The frequency scale resulted from summing up all types of answers to each of the questions. Since the correlation between the scales of variety and frequency exceeded r :0.90, the variety scale was used in the analysis. This was due to its simplicity and a greater easiness of statistical interpretation. Three groups of deviant behaviour were distinguished for the purposes of the analysis. The first of them were manifestations of behaviour given a working term of insubordination. Though not forbidden by the law, such behaviour is improper in consideration of age or represents a challenge to the authority of the parents" guardians. teachers etc. For instance. the following types of behaviour were included here: staying away from home all night without the parents' consent. running away from home, or smoking before the age of 14. The second group were acts of "dishonesty" also not penalized as a rule– e.g. failure to give a lost thing back to its owner, or steadling rides. The third and most important group were acts that bore the character of transgressions or offences. Among others, this category included brawls. beatings and other offences against person. robbery thefts. breaking and entering, receiving stolen property, and other offences against property. The examined young persons committed the following acts, most frequently: smoking before the age of 14. stealing rides. failure to give the change left from shopping back-to the parents (over 80f of affirmative answers), failure to give the change back to a shopkeeper, failure to give back a found object (over 70% of affirmatie answers). misdemeanour at school. beating. participation in a brawl (over 50% of affirmative answers). Most seldom they admited taking drugs, picking public telephones and slipping out of a pub without paying the bill (less than 10%, of the examined persons). Generally, about 35% of the examined boys (i.e. 583 persons) admitted having committed at least once a half of the, 42 acts included in the questionnaire. over 20% of boys had a high, and 7.7% a Very high level of deviance. In the Warsaw study. a very high level of deviance was found in 6.1%, of boys. Therefore, the percentage of boys with a high level of deviance is similar in both studies and nearing other Polish estimates of the extent of social maladjustment of the school youth. In the present study, hypotheses were verified which were derived from some of the most popular theories of deviance: i.a., Sutherland's theory of differential associations, Hirschi's control theory, Merton's aims – means theory, (and the related conceptions of Cloward and Ohlin), Sykes and Matza's theory of neutralization. Also certain hypotheses were verified indirectly that were derived from the Gluecks' multifactor conception and the labeling theory: The major findings were as follows: Family situation Four items of the questionnaire made together the scale of ties with the family. These were the following questions: "Do your parents try to understand your problems?'', "Do your parents trust you?, ,,Do you generally like to discuss your plans with your parents?", "Do you trust your parents?". The scale of family ties revealed a rather high negative correlation with the deviance scale (r = -0.34 for boys and. R = -0.28 for girls). It appeared that the lesser the sense of ties with the parents. the higher the tendency to deviant behaviour. Two questions concerned the general apprasal of the atmosphere at home and the degree of the respondents' identification with their families. A strong interdependence was found between the way of defining the atmosphere- at home and the level of deviance. .The respondents who scored highest on the deviance scale, defined their atmosphere at home as bad several times more frequently, and much more seldom as good or very good, as compared with the others. As regards the question whether the respondents would like their own future families to be similar to their parental homes, the distribution of answers was alike. Among the respondents who would not like it at all or rather would not like it, there were nearly three times more of those who scored highest on the deviance scale. The global index of the attitude towards the family (constructed with the answers to all questions concerning the ties and identification with the family) revealed a negative and rather high correlation with the deviance scale, both in the case of boys (r = -0.30) and of girls (r = -0.26). Thus it appeared that deviant behaviour is inversely related to family ties and identification. Those of the examined persons who revealed a nelative attitude towards their families scored significantly higher on the scale of deviance as compared with those whose appraisal of their homes was favourable. Deviance of the environment and attitudes towards friends There were four questions that concerned deviance in the environment, one of which ("Has any member of your closest family ever been convicted by the court?'') concerned the perceived intensity of deviance in the family. Both the boys and the girls whose family member had a criminal record had the highest level of deviance. This finding is of a great theoretical as well as practical value since it demonstrates the groundlessness of the frequently accepted assumption that the family is always the source of pro-social patterns of behaviour. Three questions concerned deviance of the environment, their construction aimed at reflecting various aspects of the problem both as regards the subjective and the objective point of view: the different intensity of deviance and range of environment. The questions were: "Did you ever happened to have problems at school, boarding-school or at home because of your friends?'', "Did any of your acquaintances have a case in a juveni1e court or court of general criminal jurisdiction?", "Are there many young persons in your environment who have troubles with the police?". The distribution of answers to these questions markedly differentiated the examined populations in respect to deviance. In the groups distinguished according to their level of deviance significant differences could be found as far as the deviance of the environment is concerned. The respondents whose level of deviance was the highest appeared to move significantly more often with decidedly negative circles. A scale of deviance in the environment was constructed of the above questions. Of all the scales included in the study, this one showed the highest correlation with deviant behaviour, both in the case of boys (r = 0.56) and of girls (r = 0.36). Instead, the distribution of answers to the questions about emotional ties with the reference groups, the degree of identification with these groups and the emotional stability failed to differentiate the examined populations in respect of the degree of deviance; this finding was a surprise. Attitudes towards the law There were three items in the questionnaire that concerned the attitude towards the law: "The law should be observed"; "Most of the acts people term offences actually cause no harm at all to anybody''' and "In order to get a position in life, lawless behaviour is indispensable"; the latter two were at the same time an operationalization of the Sykes and Matza's techniques of neutralization. Opinions denying or aggreeing with the statement concerning the harmlessness of offences were the 1east important in the differentiation of the examined populations in respect to the level of deviance. This variable was also least correlated with the general scale of altitudes towards the law. On the other hand, the remaining two variables of this groups did differentiate the respondents well in respect of the level of deviant behaviour. The most discriminating was the question in what situations the law should be observed. The respondents who were\of opinion that "law should always be observed irrespective of the situation'' appeared to reveal the lowest level of deviance. Instead, among the resolute legal nonconformists (,,you can break the law whenever you are certain that you will escape punishment"), those prevailed who scored highest on the deviance scale. The scale of attitudes towards the law was moderately but significantly correlated with the deviance scale, though the relationship of the presently discussed scale with that of deviance was less marked than it was the case with the scales of deviance of environmental and of the attitudes towards the family. The perceived life-chances and material situation Two of the questions concerned the perceived life prospects that can be fulfilled by legitimate means: "what is your estimation of your life prospects as compared with those of the others?", and "Will you be able to get a good job after school?". The differences in the distributions of answers to the above questions in respect of the level of deviance were not great; however. they were significant. The "worst" respondents somewhatimore often had pessimistic, and the "best" ones - optimistic views. However, the constructed index of legitimate opportunities (which consisted of the above two questions failed to reveal a significant relation to deviant behaviour. This means that the sense of blocked opportunities for promotion and success (operationalized as above) is not related to deviant behaviour. The more so as the question about the respondents' estimation of their family material standing - though it differentiated the answers in respect of the level of deviance - also revealed a very small correlation with the scale of deviance (about 0.10). Perception of life prospects and opportunities was also analyzed from a somewhat different point of view. Namely, the respondents were asked whether in their opinion connections were necessary to get a god job. and whether it was possible to succeed in life through good honest work. These questions composed the variable "illegitimate opportunities". Constructed so as to make it complementary in relation to the variable "legitimate opportunities". An attempt was also made to ascertain to what degree this variable was correlated with the attitude towards the law. The questions about the chances of fulfilment of success goals through illegitimate means differentiated the examined populations in respect of the level of deviance. The "worst" respondents stated significantly more frequently that honest work did not lead to success in life. and that connections were necessary to get a good job. It was interesting to find that the variable "illegitimate opportunities'' was moderately correlated both with the attitude towards the law and with the "legitimate opportunities''. It was a moderately good predictor of deviant behaviour since it was correlated with the deviance scale at about 0.20 for boys as well as for girls. Values, moral principles and outlook on life. Values treasured most frequently (love, friendship. happy home - over 75% (of all choices) failed to differentiate the examined populations in respect of their deviance. Of the remaining ten values, deep religious faith was chosen most frequently by the "best'' respondents, and acquiring individuality as well as learning to "be oneself' - by the ,,worst'' ones. The question about the stability of moral principles (three "types" of morality were distinguished: strict, situational and nihilistic) completely failed to differentiate the group of respondents Separated according to their Scores on the scale of deviance. There were among the moral nihilist as many of the "worst" as of the "best" respondents. The possible answers concerning the attitude towards religion ranged from: "I 'm a decided adherent of secular views" to: "I'm deeply religious". Generally speaking. This question provided but a poor differentiation in respect of the level of deviance. Since nearly 90% of the examined persons were at least "not-Church-going believers". Those of the examined persons who were deeply religious were an exception. In this group, the level of deviance of this group was decidedly the lowest. Involvement in conventional activities Of the three questions about activities consistent with the norms (active participation in youth organizations, hobbies, participation in organized leisure activities), none appeared to differentiate the examined group in respect of the level of deviance. Instead, the questions about school achievements ("Are you a good, bad or average student?") and about learning motivation ("What is for you the importance of being a good student?") were strongly related to deviance. The "worst" respondents much more often declared themselves to be bad students and admitted not caring about learning. At the same time, the variable of motivation was a much better predictor of deviance (r= -0.27) than the actual learning achievements (r= -0.11). Of the considered models of deviance, the most strongly confirmed was the theory of differential associations. This may be concluded from the following premises. Firstly, the variable of "devince of the environment'' and its separate elements revealed the highest correlation with the deviance scale. The test of significance of the differences of the value of correlation coefficients justifies the rejection of the null hypothesis as to their random character. Both the question about deviance among the closest friends, and those about deviance in a broader surroundings. revealed a much stronger correlation with deviant behaviour than the remaining variables. Also the question about deviance in the family appeared relate to deviant behaviour. In the light of the results obtained, not only a deviant peer group, but also a deviance in the family seem to be conducive to deviance. The adherents of the opinion that deviance precedes deviant associations would find it difficult to argue that it was the deviance in the examined persons that led to deviance in their families. Also the way in which the variable ,, deviance of the environment" is correlated with other variables speaks against the opinion that deviance precedes deviant associations since this variable a also revealed rather high correlation with deviant attitudes, the attitude towards learning at school and towards the family. Moreover, the relationship between the variable "deviance of environment" and ,,deviant behavior” was found to increase with age which is consistent with the known of importance of peer groups in the life of youths and their growing effect. On the other hand the result in question is difficult to interpret in the terms of alternative hypotheses: the "criminal tendencies" or ,.deviant impulses’’ should after all be constant and do not change with time. Still another finding should be mentioned here. In spite of the fact that girls generally have stronger ties with their parents as compared with boys, the correlation of the attitudes towards the family with deviant behaviour was found to be smaller in the group of girls than in the group of boys. Instead, against expectations, the deviance of the environment also revealed the highest correlation with deviant behaviour in the group of girls. Hirschi's control theory was much less confirmed by the findings of the present study. Of the four elements of bonds only the attachment to the, parents were rather strongly supported. On the other hand, hypotheses derived from the remaining elements of Hirschi.s conception were not confirmed at all (e.g. no confirmation at all was found of Hirsci’s argument that high degree of involvement in conventional types of activity is negatively related to deviance) or confirmed but to a small extent (e.g. the relationship between the school achievements and deviance). Besides the attitudes towards the family, only the attitude towards learning at school proved to be consistent with Hirschi's theory. On the other hand, in spite o| the principal hypothesis of the control theory the most isolated respondents failed to reveal a significantly higher level of deviance. Thus the conception of a solitary deviant promoted by Hirschi appears not tanable in the light of the obtained results. To sump up, if one had to decide basing on the findings of the present study which of the discussed theories was confirmed to a greater degree, it could be concluded that the theory of differential associations was confirmed to greater extent than Hirschi's control theory. On the other had, the results of the study do not seem to speak for Merton’s aims-means theory or the conception of differential opportunities of Cloward and Ohlin. Also some of the statements of the labelling approach failed to find confirmation.

Metodologiczne problemy badań typu self-report

100%

Siemaszko A.

Archiwum Kryminologii

1988

issue XV

33-93

Self-report studies are gradually becoming the predominating current of empirical research in criminology. This is particularly the case with etiological studies of deviant behaviour in young persons. However, the present popularity of self-report studies is not accompanied by improvement of their methodological aspect. No important development of the methodology of these studies has occured since the pioneer works of Short and Nye. It is the fundamental aim of the present paper to point to these of the methodological questions on which the further development of self-report studies will depend most. In Chapter I, the first works have been discussed in which the self-report methods were applied. The works anaiyzed are those of Murphy at al. Porterfield, as well as Wallerstein and Wy1e. Particular attention has been given to the methodological and substantive aspects of the series of studies carried out by Short and Nye. Chapter II contains the presentation of findings of the Polish self-report studies. The first attempt at a self-report study was made in the early 1960s by Malewska and Muszyński. A national random sample of pupils of the sixth grade of primary school n =2,222) was examined by means of an anonymous questionnaire. The basic aim of the study was to define the children's attitude towards the ownership rights and the situations in which violation of these rights is admissible. Besides, the authors were interested in how children perceived given situations to be thefts. Thus the question whether the respondents ever happened to take another person’s property was but a fragment of the questionnaire which served another purpose in its essence. To the question: "How often do you happen to take another person's property?", 0.8 per cent of the children answered ,,very often," 4.2 pet cent - "often," 26.6 per cent - "sometimes," and. 34.5 per cent-,,seldom’’ Like Malewska and Muszyński, also Szemińska and Gołąb aimed at defining the moral sense of young persons: pupils of primary schools (n=61) and inmates of educational institutions (n= 64), asking also about the extent and structure of deviant behaviour. The respondents answered anonymously in writing. The two compared groups of boys differed from each other considerably as far as both the frequency and the seriousness of thefts commited was concerned. While the majority of "delinquents" admitted a large number of thefts, the "nondelinquents" 'in their vast majority owned up to 1-2 thefts at most, mostly of small objects they stole from their classmates or next of kin with the intention to use these objects themselves." The study of Szemińska and Gołąb raises doubts, both as regards its merits and methodology. Among other things, in spite of the fact that various offences were committed by both of the discussed groups, the authors use a dichotomic pair of notions: delinquent and non-delinquent, failing to put these words in quotation marks which are necessary in this situation. In the years 1976-1977, Ostrihanska and Wójcik conducted a large self-report study of a random sample of pupils of grades 3-8 of Warsaw primary schools. 50 schools were selected at random, in which the study was carried out by means of a questionnaire in 120 classes, also randomly selected (n=3,177, of which there were 1,631 boys and 1,546 girls). The self-report study was part of a broader research programme aimed at estimating the extent of social maladjustment in the youth and defining its causes. Among other things, the questions concerned the following phenomena: school failures, truancy, running away from home, drinking alcohol, taking drugs, free riding, destroying another person’s property, other acts against property (including thefts, frauds, robbery-,,taking something from a younger child by constraint"). The possible answers were as follows: ,,never", ,,once'’, ,,2-3 times’’, ,,4-10 times’’, ,,more frequently’’ . As expected, both the extent and intensity (frequency of perpetration) of deviant behaviour were higher in the group of boys as compared with girls. For instance, as few as 15.3 per cent of the eldest boys (aged 15) stated that they never took another person's property while the percentage of non-stealing girls among the eldest group was over two times higher (38.0 per cent) In this age group 16.3 per cent of boys stole a dozen or more times, while percentage of girls who committed multiple thefts amounted to as few as 1.4 Instead, no greater differences were found between boys and girls who admitted having stolen once. In boys, the most frequent were thefts from allotments and gardens (35.2 per cent), thefts from parents (22.8 per cent) and thefts in self-service shops 18.1 per cent). On the other hand the most seldom were thefts from cellars (5.8 per cent), and thefts of wine in shops (9.7 per cent). Taking another person’s property ranked fourth among the types of deviant acts included IN the study The first position was taken by lies (88.8 per cent of answers in the affirmative). Near1y 90 per cent of boys admitted having chribbed anothe child’s exercise, 25.2 per cent- having destroyed property 2.8 per cent ran away from home, and 2.4 per cent tock drugs. There was an upward tendency with age: elder boys admitted a greater number of deviant acts, and actuallv commited these acts more frequently. The next self-report study was conducted by Ostrowska and Siemaszko in 1979. It included 2,991 pupils of Warsaw secondary schools (1,197 boys and 1,795 girls). Non-random selection was applied. Young persons of the first and last grades were examined by means of anonymous questionnaire. Among other variables, it contained a list of 42 questions about various types of deviant behaviour, acts of infringement of disciplinary regulations, transgressions and offences, from most trivial (like stealing a ride or failing to return change from shopping) to comparatively serious like house-breaking or robbery. All questions had the same set of possible answers: "never," "once of twice," several times," "a dozen or more-times," ,,more frequently." The examined young persons were characterized by rather a high level of deviance. In the group of boys for instance,539 persons (30.9 per cent) admitted having perpetrated a half of the 42 acts included in the questionnaire at least once, 2.8 per cent of them having committed 27 to 31 acts, and 2.3 per cent-32 to 42 acts. Thus together, 6 per cent of the examined boys were highly deviant. Since the study also revealed a close relationship between the number of acts committed and the frequency of their perpetration, the abovementioned 6 per cent of the examined persons (about 300 boys) are "multiple recidivists" in the interpretation used in self-report studies. Considerable differences in the level of deviant behaviour were found in respect of age and sex. For instance, the level of deviance in the group of elder boys was four times higher on average as compared with younger girls. Among the most widespread acts there were free riding (94,6 per cent of girls and 96. 1 per cent of boys), failure to return change from shopping (79.6 and 84.1 per cent respectively), petty frauds in shops (67.6 and 84.0 per cent respectively), and failure to return a found object to its owner (69.9 per cent of girls and 83.8 per cent of boys). Aggressive acts were relatively frequent, particularly among boys. Battery "without an explicit causes” was comitted by 20.2 per cent of boys and 6.5 per cent of girls.11.6 per cent of boys and 2.8 per cent of girls participated in affrays in which dangerous weapons were used. Among thefts, comparatively less serious acts predominated. 16.9 per cent of girls and 31.6 per cent of boys admitted having perpetrated petty thefts. 8.2 per cent of girls and 14.6 per cent of boys stole change from call-boxes. Serious thefts were committed by 1.6 per cent of girls and 4.6 per cent of boys. Ostrowska and Siemaszko repeated their study in 1981 on a random sample of students of secondary schools in five typically agricultural provinces. 2,144 persons (1,702 boys and 420 girls) aged 14-19, students of 29 schools, were examined. They young persons who participated in the study went to :89 classes that were selected at random. The extent and structure of deviant behaviour were examined by means of a questionnaire identical to the one applied in the previous study Also the way in which the study was carried out in the classes was the same. In the group of acts termed insubordination, the most widespread one was smoking at under: 14:78,2 per cent of boys and 44,8 per cent of girls admitted it. Somewhat less than 10per cent of the examined persons admitted having run away from home, 2 per cent of them having run away several times. Over 20 per cent of the respondents admitted having had their identity papers checked by the police (30 per cent of boys) and somewhat less than 7 per cent took drugs. Among various types of dishonest behaviour the most widespread one was free riding- over 80 per cent. Nearly a half of the examined persons admitted having failed to return a borrowed object; 7 per cent of them did it repeatedly Also nearly 50 per cent of the respondents stole money from their parents:15 per cent of them did it several times, and 5.6 per cent-more frequently. In the group of offences, thefts predominated. 24.9 per cent of girls and 32.4 per cent of boys admitted having stolen an object or money to the value of under 100 złotys (the percentage amounting to 38.6 in the group of eldest boys); nearly 20 per cent of them repeatedly stole money from their parents. About 25 per cent of the examined persons committed shop- lifting, the percentage of shop-lifters in the group of eldest boys exceeding 40. The acts of breaking into cellars, recesses, attics etc., were committed by 15 per cent of the respondents 6.1 per cent of girls and 17.2 per cent of boys. The most seldom offences against property were: robbery (2.4 per cent of girls, 10.1 per cent of boys), stealing from call-boxes (6.6 per cent of girls, 7.8 per cent of boys), thefts of money to the amount of 500-1000 złotys (6 .2 per cent of girls, 7.0 per cent of boys), failure to pay the bill in a restaurant (3.3 per cent of girls, 5.6 per cent of boys) and thefts of over 1 000 zlotys (2.8 per cent of girls and 5.6 per cent of boys). Among aggressive behavior, brawls and beatings prevailed (25 per cent of girls and 50 per cent of' boys). In Chapter III the most important methodological problems related to self-report studies are discussed. In self-report studies, both direct (e. g. ,,have you stolen), and indirect and euphemistic questions (e, g. ,,have you ever happened to take and not to give back. ") can be found. The indirect questions undoubtedly less threatening. Yet on the other hand, those asked directly are probably easier to interpret explicitly. There is no proof as to the superiority of any of these ways of asking. However indirect and euphemistic questions prevail in self-report studies. The degree of abstractness of questions varies. The good point of clearcut questions (e.g. ''have you ever taken and failed to give back some article in a supermarket") is that the highly detailed formulation may help the respondent to recall an event which the researcher is interested in. On the other hand, their weak point is that the respondent cannot be relied upon to admit having acted in another, very similar yet not identical way. Unfortunately, the majority of self-report questionnaires contain questions about inseparate classes of phenomena. Hence the danger of one and the same act being counted several times. In self-report studies, the number of questions about deviant behavior is an important problem. One should bean it in mind that the deviant acts taken into account by the researcher are always nothing but a certain sample of the totality of such acts, the parameters of which are usually unknown (e.g. Christie et al.). The greater the number of acts taken into account, the more standard the "sample of acts" seems to be with respect to the "totality of acts." There are great differences as regards the number of acts included: from several (e.g. Hirschi, Dentler and Monroe) up to several dozen (e.g. Gibson). Today time limits are usually introducted as regards the period between the act and the moment of examination one year as a rule), though Short and Nye introducted no limits as regards the period during which the respondents committed the admitted acts. Shorter periods can also be found. (e.g. Simone et al, - 2 months, Lipton and Smith - 18 months). The limits are among the most important problems in self-report studies, since it is on them that the estimation depends on the level of deviance of the entire examined group, as well as the precise estimation of the separate respondents levels of deviance. The views on the optimum time limits are not uniform. Different sets of possible answers to the questions about deviant behaviour can be found: from most precise (e.g. "once," "twice," etc.) to most general and ambigous (e.g. "seldom," ,,frequently"). A strictly enumerative set of answers may be methodologically correct only in the case of a short period (one year or less). In the remaining cases, this set may be misleading as one hardly expects the examined persons to remember past events with such accuracy. The questions about deviant behaviour may constitute a separate block (nay a separate questionnaire), or they may be put among other questions. There are no studies showing the good and weak points of each of these two solutions. It seems more proper however, to "mask" the aim of the study by interlarding the questions about deviant behaviour with those neutral or concerning "acts of kindness." When the level or "depth" of the examined person's deviant involvement is defined, an important problem emerges: acts with different "charges of deviance are taken into account here. Therefore, one can either try and attach different weights to them, or treat all of them as equally serious. Christie et al. ranked acts according to the judges opinion. Morash weighted them with the use of Selling and Wolfgang's scale of seriousness of offences. In Hindelang's study, the weight of acts was defined by specialists by means of a fivepoint scale. Hepburn weighted deviant acts basing on appraisals done by the examined persons themselves. However in the vast majority of self-report studies, no weigh ting procedure is applled. As shown by Farrington, weighting procedures fail to contribute substantially to the increase in accuracy of measurement. An anonymous questionnaire, though most frequentlv applied, is not the only method of gathering information about unrecorded deviant behaviour. E, g. Gold (and other researchers who applied Gold’s scale) employed a questionnaire interview In Belson's study a card sorting procedure was applied. This method of gathering information is particularly popular in England (see also Gibson, Farrington, West, Morash, Shapland). Hirschi examined his respondents with a signed questionnaire. Should the differences in veracity of answeers of a signed and anonymous questionnaire prove to be inessential (and there is much to be said for it, e.g. Krohn, Waldo and Chiracos), it would be advisable to use the signed version (because of the possibility of comparing the separate sociometric choices or comparing the findings with external sources of information). The main objection raised to self-report studies concerns the doubtful veracity of the data gathered this way (Dentler, Liska). A relatively small number of studies concerned the reliability of self-report studies, e.g. the stability of findings in time. This is the most difficult problem in the case of a strictly anonymous questionnaire as the separate respondents cannot be retest. Only global distributions are compared then (e.g the scores of respondents in a given class) Siemaszko finds no valid differences between the distributions answers about deviant acts between a test and a retest which took place there months later. Dentler and Monroe found that 92 per cent of answers to a test and a retest two weeks 1ater were consistent, yet the respondents could still have remembered their previous answers in this case. Belson conducted a retest after a shorter period still: one week. The percentage of consistent answers amounted to 88. Also Farrington’s study revealed rarther a high degree of consistency in spite of the two year's interval. The percentage of mistakes in the test or retest was 3.2 The tendency to inconsistent answers was less explicit if the general scores of the examined persons on the deviance scales were analyzed and not the proportion of their affirmative and negative answers to the separate questions (11.5 per cent of the, examined persons found themselves in another quartile than Before). The results obtained by Shapland were parallel. The results seem to point to a high stability of self-report questionnaires in time. Hardt and Peterson-Hardt distinguish the following methods of defining the validity of self-report questionnaires: comparing with external sources of information, comparing with a known group, lie scales, and defining face validity. The most frequent method of defining the validity of questionnaires used in examination of unrecorded deviant behaviour is the comparison of the respondents' answers with other reliable sources of information. Erickson and Empey found that none of their respondents concealed their contact with the police or an offence with which they were charged. According to Gold, the probability of contacts with the police diminishes monotonically together with decrease of frequency of offences admitted during the examination. Gibson, Morrison and West found a high consistency between offences revealed by means of the self-report method and the contents of the police files. Hindelang found a distinct positive interdependence between high scores in the deviance scale and having a record in the police files. Farrington, as well as Farrington and West, examined the so-called predictive validity of self-report questionnaires. It appeared that those of the examined persons who score highest in deviance scales at the moment. A, have records in the police files much more frequently at the moment B. Gould compared the scores in the Short,/Nye scale with those in the recorded crime scale, finding a high, positive and valid interdependence. Results of self-report tests were also compared with other sources of information (teachers, colleagues, social workers, etc.). As shown by Jessor, Graves, Hanson and Jessor, results of the self-report tests tally with appraisals of the degree of deviant involvement made by teachers and colleagues of the examined persons. Also Gould compared the respondents' statements with appraisals of their behaviour made by their colleagues and teachers. The interdependence proved to be as expected. Hardt and Peterson-Hardt compared statements in which the examined persons admitted having robbed parkometers with the official data concerning the extent of these thefts. The respondents appeared to have answered truthfully. In many studies scores of school children and of institutionalized youth were compared. As demonstrated already by Short and Nye, although the inmates of reformatories scored somewhat higher than students of normal schools, nevertheless the profiles of distributions and their structure were analogous. Voss found the correlates of deviance in groups of school children and institutionalized youth to be parallel. This finding was confirmed in many other studies. The only exception here is the parents socio-economic status. Uniformity of views could not have been reached as yet as to whether the positive interdependence between the socio-economic status and deviant behaviour found in the majority of self-report studies is artificial or real (see i.a. Tribble, Axenroth, Hindelang Hirschi and Waise). Much can be said about the validity of a self-report questionnaire only on the grounds of the distributions of answers to the separate questions, Siemaszko found the percentage of affirmative answers to decrease monotonically with the increase of seriousness of the act and its scarcity in the general population. In the same study the percentage of affirmative answers to the question about being checked by the police was found to be higher than that concerning detention: also the level of deviance of elder as compared with younger and boys as compared with girls proved higher, These results agree with theoretical expectations, Hardt and Peterson-Hardt found the percentage of affirmative answers to the questions about acts commited during the last year to be generally lower than it is the case with questions that concerned also acts commited longer before. Not all of self-report questionnaires contain lie scales. Moreover, the researchers are not in agreeement as to the usefulness of such scales this type of studies (i.a. Farrington, Smart, Hardt, Peterson- Hardt). I seems that lie scales should be employed Questions should however be avoided which might be correlated with deviant behaviour, as in such case there is the danger of the lie scale becoming the reverse of that of deviance. The popularity of self-report studies was determined by the effectiveness of this method (relatively low cost 1ittle time consuming, promptitude and the possibility of examining large samples) Today, self-report studies have become popular in spite of the fact that many important methodological problems have not been solved yet.

Percepcja dewiacji w społeczeństwie

100%

Siemaszko A.

Archiwum Kryminologii

1991

issue XVII

117-197

The main object of the study was to define the attitude of Polish society to forty-six types of behaviour controversial from the moral point of view and/or prohibited by law. Another aim was to determine which of the socio-demographic variables examined influence the different opinions about those types of behaviour. Two pilot surveys preceded the study. They concerned two quota samples of 100 persons each and were aimed at finding out, among others, which of the alternative descriptions of the separate types of behaviour might constitute better indices. As a result, descriptions of several types of behaviour were rewritten, and some others formulated more intelligibly. The study proper was conducted in November 1987; a national random sample of 2000 persons was examined. The respondents could choose one of the following seven answers: I do not condemn at all; I do not condemn; I rather do not condemn; it is difficult to say; I rather condemn; I condemn; I condemn utterly. Questions concerning all of the 46 types of behaviour included in the study could be answered the above seven ways. The analysis was based on arithmetic means of answers which ranged from 1 to 7 in value. The following types of behaviour were the least condemned (the figures are arithmetic means; proportions of utter condemnations have been quoted in brackets): 1. becoming an unmarried mother – 2.65 (2.9 per cent); 2. leaving the country forever – 3.45 (5.7 per cent); 3. watching porno films – 3.76 (8.4 per cent); 4. living unwed – 3.87 (11.1 per cent); 5. unintentional homicide – 4.29 (12.7 per cent); 6. tourists’ petty trade abroad – 4.33 (11.8 per cent); 7. divorce – 4.42 (13.8 per cent); 8. criticising the political system in public – 4.46 (11.5 per cent); 9. addiction to tobacco – 4.48 (14.3 per cent); taking part in a strike – 4.55 (14.3 per cent). As shown by the results of the AID analysis, the best predictors of public opinion’s attitude to the above-mentioned ten types of behaviour are as follows: for becoming an unmarried mother – education; for emigration – age; for watching porno films – education; for fornication – religiousness; for unintentional homicide – the answers were not differentiated (homogeneity of opinions); for tourist’ petty trade – age; for divorce – religiousness; for criticising the system in public – education; for addiction to tobacco – age; for participation in strikes – education. Among the above ten types of behaviour that are least condemned, the most numerous group concerns the broadly interpreted sexual sphere which testifies to great transformations in sexual morals of Polish society. Also conspicuous is the presence of two types of behaviour from the sphere of politics among those least condemned. On the other hand, there are no criminal offences in this group. The following types of behaviour proved to be the most condemned (they are arranged according to the rising means; proportions of utter condemnations in brackets): 37. addiction to alcohol – 6.41 (56.7 per cent); 38. espionage – 6.48 (62.0 per cent); 39. kidnapping an airplane – 6.55 (66.1 per cent); 40. drug addiction – 6.57 (64.7 per cent); 41. failure to help a person in mortal danger – 6.60 (66.5 per cent); 42. robbery 6.65 (71.0 per cent); 43. rape – 6.67 (72.4 per cent); 44. hooligan battery – 6.73 (75.6 per cent); 45. murder – 6.78 (81.0 per cent); father-daughter incest – 6.81 (83.3 per cent). The best predictors of differentiation of opinions were as follows: for alcoholism – sex; for espionage – marital status (the unmarried, that is the younger, condemned espionage less strongly) for air-plane kidnapping – place of residence; for drug addiction – the answers were not differentiated (homogeneous opinions); for failure to help – the answers were not differentiated (homogenous opinions); for robbery – education (condemnation growing with the level of education); for rape – place of residence (the rural population condemning it less strongly); for hooligan battery – the answers were not differentiated (homogeneous opinions); for murder – place of residence (peasants and inhabitants of small towns condemning it less strongly); for incest – education (condemnation growing with the level of education). Of the above ten types of behaviour that were most condemned, eight are offences, including the most serious ones like rape, robbery and murder. The differences between the means of answers are much smaller here than in the case of the most tolerated types of behaviour. The opinions are also differentiated to a much smaller degree with respect to the independent variables examined. In three cases (drug addiction, hooligan battery and failure to help), the examined socio-demographic traits failed to differentiate opinions at all, which points to extremely unanimous condemnation of those acts. An analysis of the list of the most condemned types of behaviour leads to the following conclusions: 1. the more condemned a given act, the smaller the differentiation of opinions; 2. Polish society is particularly intolerant to aggressive behaviour: the list contains as many as five aggressive acts; 3. the most condemned types of behaviour do not include acts such as e.g. theft of private and public property (ranks 31 and 29 respectively); prostitution (rank 25); homosexualism (rank 32; bribery (rank 26); failure to pay maintenance (rank 34); social parasitism (rank 23); speculation (rank 27); also none of political acts were condemned as much; 4. eight of the ten most condemned types of behaviour are offences; addictions are condemned to a comparable extent; 5. the differences between the mean answers concerning the separate types of most condemned behaviour are slight (ranging from 6.41 for alcoholism to 6.8 for incest). Polish society is relatively tolerant to sexual behaviour. In the list of 46 examined types of behaviour arranged according to growing means of answers, becoming an unmarried mother ranks first, watching porno films – third, fornication – fourth, divorce – seventh, adultery – twenty-second, prostitution – twenly-fifth, and homosexualism – thirtysecond. In the case of the two latter types only, that is prostitution and homosexualism, the means of answers exceeded 6, while four of the seven types included in this group were among the most tolerated. The variable which has the greatest influence on the attitude to sexual behaviour is religiousness. The attitude to religious practices was the best predictor of differentiation of opinions in the case of fornication, adultery, and divorce, and appeared as a differentiating variable of a secondary importance in the case of watching porno films and prostitution: Education significantly modified the attitude to homosexualism, watching porno films, and becoming an unmarried mother. Sex, instead, most strongly differentiated the attitudes to prostitution, women condemning this type of behaviour more strongly than men. Against expectations, age was never the best predictor in relation to sexual behaviour. Nor could the typothesis be confirmed that the rural population condemns behaviour of that sphere more strongly than the urban one. Quite the contrary, the two groups appeared not to differ from each other in their opinions about sexual behaviour. Also political acts are greatly tolerated by Polish society. Two of them can be found among the ten least condemned: criticising the system in public (rank 8), and participation in a strike (rank 10). Further, “underground” political activity ranked eleventh, participation in a street demonstration – fifteenth, and refusal to enter military service (which in Poland has a political context as a rule) – eighteenth. The attitude to political acts, however, is particularly differentiated according to the separate socio-demographic traits. Here, the best predictor is education: the higher its level, the greatest the tolerance. Education best differentiated the attitude to criticising the system in public, participation in a strike, and participation in a demonstration. The attitude to political opposition, instead, was best explained by material situation (tolerance increasing with the worsening of that situation). On the other hand, the opinion about refusal to enter military service depended mostly on marital status, single (that is, younger) respondents being considerably more tolerant in this respect. The following conclusions can be drawn from an analysis of the Polish public opinion’s attitude to political acts: 1. there was in this group the greatest dispersion of answers according to the separate socio-demographic traits; 2. the attitude to political acts is entirely independent of the level of religiousness; 3. the influence of Party membership on the differentiation of opinions proved much smaller than expected. Polish society shows a low tolerance to behaviour related to alcohol: illicit distillation of liquor ranked twentieth, unlicensed sale of alcohol thirtieth, and alcoholism – thirty-seventh (that is, among the most strongly condemned types of behaviour). Sex is the variable which has the greatest influence on the attitude to behaviour related to alcohol. In all of the above three cases, women condemned behaviour related to alcohol much more strongly than men. The following conclusions can be drawn from the AID, analysis: 1. despite the generally low permissiveness of behaviour related to alcohol, the opinions of the separate subgroups of respondents are highly differentiated and range from very stnong condemnation to considerable tolerance; 2. the above very high differentiation of opinions testifies to behaviour related to alcohol being an important and controversial problem; 3. the influence of the place of residence on the attitude to this group of acts was smaller than expected (particularly astonishing is a lack of a greater tolerance of illicit distilling of liquor among the rural population). Of the three addictions taken into account in the study, the least condemned one is smoking (rank 9; the best predictor: age). Alcoholism ranked thirty-seventh (the best predictor: sex), and drug addiction – fortieth (homogeneous opinions, no differentiation of answers). Despite the comparability of the examined addictions, the attitude to smoking is by far more tolerant which indicates that the respondents treated nicotine addiction differently than alcoholism and drug addiction. The morally controversial types of behaviour included euthanasia (rank 13, the best predictor: religiousness); free riding (rank 17, the best predictor: age); suicide (rank 24, predictor: religiousness); social parasitism (rank 23, predictor: age); and denouncing others to authorities (rank 21, predictor: place of residence). Conclusions from the AID analysis are as follows: 1. religiousness most strongly influences the perception of euthanasia and suicide: e.g. in the latter case, a different scale of opinions corresponds with each of the separated levels of religiousness; 2. euthanasia meets with an astonishingly small condemnation (the term defined as “causing the death of an incurably ill person at his request”); 3. the respondents were unexpectedly unanimous in their very strong condemnation of denouncing, with a somewhat greater tolerance shown by the rural population only. Corrupt practices included: using connections to settle a business (rank 12, the best predictor: age); accepting bribes (rank 26, predictor: age); deriving personal profit from one’s job (rank 28, predictor: age); membership of a coterie (rank 36, predictor: education). As follows from the AID, analysis, 1. the attitude to corrupt practices depends most strongly on age: younger respondents aged under 35 (that is, those brought up under the present rule) are much more tolerant to the above forms of corruption; 2. a higher level of education increases the tolerance to corrupt practices; Polish society’s opinions about corruption are relatively poorly differentiated. Of criminal acts, eight were included in the group of the most condemned ones discussed above. Of the remaining offences, theft of private property ranked 31 (the best predictor: place of residence, condemnation is less strong among the rural population); theft of public property ranked 29 (predictor: place of residence, also in this case, condemnation is less strong among peasants); vandalism ranked 35 (predictor: place of residence, peasants and inhabitants of small towns condemned it less strongly); helping a person wanted by the police ranked 19 (homogeneous opinions); speculation ranked 27 (predictor: are, respondents under 19 were more tolerant). The findings lead to the following conclusions. Firstly, Polish society is astonishingly unanimous in its opinions about the types of behaviour included in the study. In several cases, uniformity of opinions was so high as to make any divisions in respect of the force of condemnation impossible. Thus a high axiological homogeneity of Polish society has been found. Secondly, the independent variables examined explained but a very small part of variances. Therefore, socio-demographic traits have a low predictive value as regards the differentiation of opinions about deviant behaviour. Consequently, an inclination to condemn the examined types of behaviour results not from the basic individual characteristics (such as sex, age, education) but from some other factors. Thirdly, the best predictor of differentiation of opinions was education (in 10 cases), followed by age and place of residence (in 9 cases each). The influence of religiousness on differentiation of opinions was smaller than expected (5 cases), and the relationship between sex and the opinions about the examined types of behaviour proved astonishingly distant (4 cases). The remaining independent variables (i.e. background, Party membership, material situation, activities in social organizations) failed to influence significantly the differentiation of opinions. Fourthly, Polish society is highly rigoristic. As many as 29 of the 46 types of behaviour examined were condemned most strongly by at least 25 per cent of respondents. Thus the Poles have an exceptionally low global degree of tolerance to controversial or negative phenomena and types of behaviour.

Przestępczość wielokrotnych recydywistów i stosowana wobec nich polityka karna

100%

Siemaszko A.

Archiwum Kryminologii

1983

issue X

23-54

In Poland in recent years, the number of people sentenced each year in what is know as „special multiple recidivism (Art.60 § 2) has been in the order of 1,500-1,700. This paragfaph of the Penal Code, which applies to offences against property and to acts of hooliganism, provides for a drastic stepping-up of penal Sanctions. Under the Penal Code, the minimum sentence for multi-recidivists in this category is two years' imprisonment, unless there are mitigating circumstances. Hence it may be concluded that the legislation regards this group of effenders as constituting a specially serious danger to law and order. The sudy described below was designed to elucidate if that is really the case. The subjects in this study were all multi-recidivists sentenced under this paragraph by the courts in five voivodships of Poland, in the years 1975 and 1976. Over 1,700 criminal cases brought against 131 persons were analysed. For technical reasoni, it was not possible to make a random sample. Nevertheless, if we take into consideration the fact that the subjects constituted 10% of all multi-recidivists convicted of special multiple recidivism within this period, as well as the fact that the main social and demographic data and the kinds of crimes committed by the multi-recidivists in our group are almost identical to such data in other investigations based on random samples, we can take it that the sample used in our study may be considered as representative of all the offenders convicted of crimes in what is known as „specual multiple recidivism”. The methods used was to analyse the court records and the data given in the register of convicted persons and in the register of prisoners. Efforfs were made to collect information from the records on all crimes committed by the recidivists in our group, right from the beginning of their criminal career. The study fell into the following headings: 1) basic socio-demographic data, 2) crime record, 3) structure of offences committed, 4) effectiveness of penal measures used, 5) the penal policy adopted towards our subjects in different periods. Finally, conclusions drawn from the present study, as well asfrom other studies of multi-recidivism are presented. Some basic characteristics of this group are as follows: The mean age of the subjects was 40, and their mean age at the time of the first conviction: 21. The percentage of multi-recidivists who began their criminal carrer being aged 25 and over was higher in this group than in other studies. The educational level of the men in this group was much lower than that of the male manual workers employed in the public economy. Nearly 4O% of the subjects had no trade, and among those who did work, most of their jobs consisted of the simplest manual work not requiring any qualifications. Yet it was found that only about 40% of the subjects had worked regularly before their first conviction, and that nearly 39%o had never worked at all. The average number of convictions per subject was 7. The mean length of prison sentence given was 31.9 months (that is, over 2.5 years), while the average stay in prison was 24.44 months, that is, just over two years. Out of 922 sentences, 43.1% did not exceed 18 months. The percentage of prison sentences of five years and over was only 6.6%. These facts may indicate that the offenders in this group had not committed serious crimes that were a real threat to law and order. But the sentences passed for the first two cases were statistically significantly lower than those imposed for later crimes. A similar statistically significant difference was noted as regards length of successive periods spent at liberty. After each period in prison, the periods at liberty became successively shorter. Nevertheless generally speaking the tempo of recidivism was very high in this group. Out of a total number of 818 periods spent in freedom, 11.4% had a duration not exceeding a month, while 40% did not exceed six months in duration. The percentage of periods of freedom that lasted for more than three years was barely 7.4% in this group. As for the structure of offenies committed by the subjects in this group, offences against property dominated, for 85.9% of the total number of 1,784 offences committed were offences of this type, offences against the person 3.48% of the total, offences against authority 3.48%, and offences against the family 1.23%. Theft of private property accounted for 50% of all the offences committed by the recidivists in this group. Serious crimes, such as rape, homicide, or robbery, constituted barely 2.2% of all the offences committed by this group, and by far the most were robberies. But even robbery, regarded as a serious crime, formed a tiny percentage of all the offences committed, for out of the total numbet of 1,784 offences, 37 were robberies. In more than 75% of the crimes against property, the sums obtained were no more than 5,000 zlotys, while in only 11% of the total cases did the sum obtained exceed 10,000 zlotys . Several methods were used to assess the effectiveness of imprisonment. The first method was to work out the correlation between the variable "time in prison” and the variable "time at in freedom". This correlation turend out to be nearly 0 (r = 0.02). This means that we can reject the hypothesis that there is a positive connection between length of imprisonment and time spent in freedom. The second method was to study the length of time spent in freedom after periods of imprisonment of various lengths: up to 6 months, from 7 to 12 month., from 1 to 2 years, from 2 to 3 years, and 3 years and over. Here, too, there was no significant correlation (X2 = 5.10; df = 12), which is below the level of significance. The third method was to try to find out if there was a significant diffence in duration of freedom between the recidivists sentenced to terms of up to 6 months, and those sentenced to three years and over. The aim of this method was to discover if what are regarded as long terms in prison are followed by longer terms in the outside world. In other words, it would be interesting to know if long-term incarceration has a deterrent effect. In this case, too, no significant statistical defferences were found (X2 = O,32; dt= 3, which is below the level of significance). Thus it would seem that in our group of subjects' length of time in prison had no effect at all on the tempo of recidivism. This was confirmed by analysis of the duration of the first stay in prison as compared with the subsequent time spent in freedom: (X2 = 2.80; df = 4, which is below the level of significance). There have been more and more frequent assertions of late, that the Polish criminal justice system has becoming more and more punitive. The present study tried to test whether these assertions are justified with reference to the population of multi-recedivists. Hence the period 1948-1978 was divided into five stages more or less corresponding to different phases of penal policy in Poland. These stages are as follows: Period I (l948-1955), Period II (1956-1960), Period III ( 1961-1965), Period IV (1966-1969), and Period V (197O-1978). The next step was to determine the character of penal policy towards recidivists during these various stages. As regards the length of the first prison sentences, the t test for the significance of the differences between the means showed that the mean duration of prison sentences in Period I (which was a very punitive period) was significantly greater than the duration of sentences passed in Period II and III. On the other hand, the mean duration of sentences passed in Periods I and IV showed no significant difference. This means that from the high figure un the "Stalin era”, the mean length of first prison sentences fell sharply in the next decade (especially in the „post October 1956" period), after which it gradually rose again, till in the period 1966-1969 it had reached a level not much lower than that of the "Stalin era". A similar analysis was made of the second prison sentences meted out. Our findings were that during the whole time under review there were no drastic changes of penal policy towards persons previously sentenced. (None of the differences between the means representing the duration of second prison sentences were statistically significant). The highest mean length of prison sentences was noted in Period I. There was a sharp fall in Period II, followed again by a gradual rise, until Period V, when length of sentence again was nearly as great as in Period I. Since similar results were obtained when the means of the length of third prison sentences in the various periods were compared, as well as the means for the length of all sentences meted out in all five periods (here the tendency we have been discussing was particularly evident), the hypothesis as to the steadily increasing punitive character of the punitive justice system in Poland would seem to be borne out by the evidence. Use of the means has this drawback: that with the exception of the standard deviation we have no other information about the sentences coming into different duration categories. For this reason we carried out an extra test, which consisted in comparing the distribution of sentences in the same five periods, but in categories with sentences of up to 1 year, from 1 year to 2 years, and sentences of two years and over. Here, too, the same tendency was found (X2=119.19; df = 8; p<0.01). The following conclusions were reached as a result of this study. The principles behind the paragraph of the Penal Code which deals with special multiple recidivism, and the construction of that paragraph, are wrong. Instead of being aimed maiunly at the perpetrators of serious crimes against person, as well as serious crimes against property, this paragraph in actual fact affects the perpretators of petty or very petty offences against property. On the whole these are habitual petty thieves, who offer no real serious threat to law and order. The result is that in the practice of punitive justice system even a very petty theft comitted in conditions of special multiple recidivism leads to a long term of imprisonment. The consequence is that it also leads to a formal increase of recidivism, for if the law were different, the case could be discontinued or suspended. Hence Art. 60 § 2 of the Penal Code should definitely be abrogated.

Przestępczość i polityka karna w krajach postkomunistycznych: spojrzenie laika

100%

Siemaszko A.

Archiwum Kryminologii

2006

issue XXVIII

67-94

Can we seriously analyse penal policy trends in the post-communist states if we have no idea on the penal legislation in these countries, on trends in crime combat and prevention or the current shape of the penal policy, including in particular penal code reforms that are being developed or implemented? We would naturally say no. The author, however, attempts to prove that such an analysis is possible provided one has access to relevant statistical data. The data are contained mainly in three publications: European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics, Penological Information Bulletin and Atlas przestępczości w Polsce [Overview of Crime in Poland]. For the purposes of this paper, the data were significantly modified not to include some of the post-communist states. For various reasons, mainly due to the data credibility and completeness, the author focussed only on ten such states, i.e. Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary. Some comparisons also include Bulgaria. Firstly, an analysis of the data shows that the common characteristics of the post-communist states under discussion are their high crime levels, both in terms of dynamics and prevalence. An exceptionally high level of crime risk is also displayed in the victimological research results. Secondly, a comparison of crime reporting levels clearly shows that the crime level in our region is actually much higher than police statistics might suggest. This is also confirmed by the results of nationwide Polish research held every four years within the International Crime Survey. We usually are one of the last countries in terms of crime reporting levels. It seems that people in our region are generally quite reluctant to report crime (due to our mistrust in police effectiveness), which makes our official crime statistics extremely unreliable. Therefore, while victimological research in the Western European countries may be treated as an interesting alternative to police statistics (and we actually could do without the latter), in our region, such research is a must. Thirdly, due to the extremely unreliable police statistics, it is essential to initiate victimological research in the countries of our region, and ideally to include them in the International Crime Survey. Without reliable victimological studies, we will have to rely on the police data that sometimes seem to be a tactless joke. The author's analysis, although not aimed at establishing any general rules, but rather at clearly describing the facts, naturally brings some obvious conclusions. The first conclusion is that all the former Soviet bloc countries were characterised by high crime levels at the turn of the 21st century. And the times are not conducive to softening penal repressions, which makes it obvious that most states under discussion continued their rather harsh penal policy compared to the Western countries. Poland was an interesting exception with its new and extremely liberal penal legislation having been introduced in the period of an extremely sharp crime growth. However, the author underlines that these developments had fortunately little influence on the judicial practice, all the more so since the main legislative and judicial changes to ease penal repressions had been introduced earlier. In other words, already before 1997 when the new penal codification was adopted, we had reached a dead end in crime policy liberalisation and there was no space left for more such changes for fear of mass protests and riots. The fact that the new and much more liberal penal code did not bring significant changes in the judicial practice proves the advantage of the judicial opinion over penal code solutions. This means and is clearly confirmed in the Polish experience that the form of penal legislation is much less important (though not unimportant) than specific judicial practice. All the states under analysis still show a disastrous structure of the length of unsuspended prison sentences. On the one hand, the shortest terms (up to one year, or even six months) are used too rarely, and on the other, too seldom are also the relatively long terms of ten and more years of prison. That makes sentence diversification seem insufficient. In all the states under discussion, the dominating group of imprisonment sentences are those from one to three years, which is inefficient from the criminology perspective, quite costly, and leads to the overpopulation of prisons. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that all these countries have such high imprisonment rates per 100,000 inhabitants.

International Crime Victim Survey ‘04/05: Polska na tle wybranych krajów Unii Europejskiej

100%

Siemaszko A.

Archiwum Kryminologii

2008

issue XXIX-XXX

169-192

Polskie Badanie Przestępczości (PBP) 2007-2009: analiza wybranych rezultatów

100%

Siemaszko A.

Archiwum Kryminologii

2009

issue XXXI

223-264

Polish Crime Study (PBP) carried out between 2007 and 2009 was a joint project of the Police Headquarters and the Institute for Justice. The particular aim of the project, which was carried out in all 16 voivodships of Poland and in the police area of the of the Capital District, was to estimate the level of crime increase and its dark figures, evaluation of police work, and measure of fear of crime - both across the country and in each province. The research was carried out each year in the first half of January of on a random sample of 17 thousand respondents (3 thousands in each province and 3 thousand in the the Warsaw Police Headquarters area) by traditional face to face interview method. Analyzed results include 51 thousand respondents who were surveyed in 2007 - 2009. For the entire sample constructed in this way the measurement error is minimal and is in fact only 0.4% in general and 1.8% for the particular local area tests. It should be emphasised that PBP is the largest victimological study in Poland (surveys of the Institute of Justice in the previous rounds of the ICVS did not usually exceed 5 thousand respondents) and, at the same time, one of the major social surveys in our country.. The questionnaire of Polskie Badanie Przestępczości included questions related to the victimization with the following acts: robbery, assault, burglary, car theft, other theft (pickpocket, mobile phone theft, bicycle theft). The study also included a question concerning the reporting level of abovementioned acts. Much attention was paid to the perception of the police and fear of the crime in the measurement tool (such items were generally modeled on the Polish version of the ICVS questionnaire). The study included a total of 12 positions and 10 measurable questions. Positions related to offenses and their applications were relatively complex and de facto consisted of several questions. PBP results indicate that the intensification of a crime in Poland is still quite considerable. Nearly every fifth inhabitant of our country was a victim of one of the offenses taken into consideration during the analyzed period, almost every eighteenth was a victim of a burglary. Also other thefts (nearly 1,900 cases per 51 thousand respondents), and robberies (nearly 1,500 cases per 51 thousand resondents) happen quite often. The largest (tenfold) diversity in regional reviev concerns the risk of a car theft, white the smallest (2,5 fold) diversity concerns robberies and other theft. Relatively large, (fivefold) differences have also been reported in case of battery. It should be noted that differences in the frequency of the offences taken into consideration voivodship-wise is comparable or even greater than in the individual EU countries taking part in the final round of the ICVS, which is certainly quite a surprise.

Zezwolenia na czasowe opuszczenie zakładu karnego

51%

Szumski J., Siemaszko A., Wójcik D.

Archiwum Kryminologii

1998

issue XXIII-XXIV

115-165

The article is composed of four basic parts. The first one is historical: it discusses the evolution of legal regulation of various forms of permits to temporarily leave prison (except interruption of execution of the penalty of imprisonment) and the practice of granting such permits in the period preceding the adoption of the new punishment execution code [PEC]. Concerned here were: permit granted by way of reward to leave prison for up to 5 days (Art. 55 § 3 PEC); so-called compassionate permit to stay away from prison for up to 5 days (Art. 59 PEC); so called reward permit for 24 hours (§ 62.1 of Instruction on the execution of the penalty of imprisonment before its amendment of 1995); and regulation permit also granted for 24 hours (abolished by the abvementioned amendment of the Instruction). Hence the discussion contained in the first part of the paper proceeds on two different planes. On the one hand, we discuss the legal shape of the permits undergoing legislative changes and at the same time submitted them to critical dogmatic analysis. On the other hand, we strive to demonstrate the functioning of those legal solutions in penitentiary practice basing on the findings of few earlier empirical surveys and on statistical materials gathered by the prison administration since 1985. Our main focus is the practice of the 1990s when systemic transformation and the related humanization of the process of imprisonment led to considerable growth in the number of granted permits to temporarily leave prison, and the relevant legal transformations the effected, that is amendment of PEC and the Instruction on the execution of the penalty of imprisonment. The issue of permits was then broadly covered by the media which - not always competently and objectively - criticized the authorities for too many such permits granted; this led to an animated discussion in the doctrine. Critics considered this policy of penitentiary authorities too liberal; they argued it led to a growth in crime caused by prisoners released on permit thus reducing citizens’ feeling of safety, and also made it possible for prisoners to escape or to stay away from prison longer than permitted. It has not been possible to appraise the discussed policy basing on statistical data only due first of all to the fact that the material we based on contained merely data on the number of permits granted and said nothing about the grantees and their characteristics. From statistical analysis it followed merely that from 1985 till 1993, the number of permits granted went up nine times only to become reduced by 40% during the next two years. Also on a regular decrease (from 6.3 to 2.4 percent) in that period were cases of so-called ,,failure to return” - a category which, for obscure reasons, in the statistics includes both the actual failures to return to the institution and cases of late-coming; the proportions were calculated from the total of permits granted. The number of offenses committed by prisoners while on permit was rather small and ranged from 200 to 600 a year. Part two of the article discusses international penitentiary standards relating to inmates’ contacts with the outer world and contained in the UN Standard Minimum Rules of Treatment of Prisoners of 1955 and European Prison Rules of 1987. Also discussed have been provisions regulating the permits to temporarily leave prison in selected European countries: Germany, France, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Holland, Austria, Portugal, Italy, Bulgaria and Hungary. It could be stated basing on the analysis that the Polish regulations of the discussed sphere (even those valid before the adoption of the new punishment execution code) were consistent with international standards and by no means inferior to foreign provisions. The next part of the study discusses the findings of the authors' own research conducted on 15-31 August 1995 (that is, before the above-mentioned of PEC and rules of imprisonment) in 12 prisons and remand prisons. The tool was a questionnaire developed by the Law Enforcement Institute. Examined were the files of all prisoners who in the period from 1 January 1994 till 30 June 1995 applied for a permit to temporarily leave prison, or in whose case the application was field by prison administration, whether the permit was actually granted or refused. The sample was composed of 1,043 persons, and the number of applications was 7,336. The total of 6,524 permits were granted to 970 persons. It was found that a vast majority of permits applied for were actually granted which is to some extent accounted for by the fact that most applications were field by prison administration who subsequently supported them. Permits were granted to 93% of the sample which made as many as 6.7 permits per person on the average. What is more significant though, was that over one-fifth or the sample (22.6%) were granted 10 or more permits within a relatively short period of time which manifests the existence of a privileged group among prisoners. That same conclusion can also be drawn from the fact that, the mean length of time spent away from prison being 43 hours, 11% of the sample were on permit for 1 to 2 months, and 1.5% - for over 2 months. As regards return from permit, the proportion of prisoners who never returned was 8.4%, and over one-fourth of them were on the police wanted list during the survey. This phenomenon is the more dangerous as nearly a half of the sample (49.5% a failed to return in due time on at least one occasion. Instead, the number of offenses committed by the sample while on permit seems relatively small, the proportion of offenders being 4.3%. Offenses committed most often were burglary and robbery. Considering, however, the extremely small detectability rate in Poland, the proportion may well depart greatly from the reality. Even the above findings justify the statement as to a dubious value of appraisals of the correctness of permit granting policy basing on statistical material only. They also confirm the need for inclusion is those materials of data on the number not only of permits granted but also of grantees. Leaving aside a number of formal transgressions found in the course of research, the findings generally justify a conclusion that many permits were granted automatically, so to say. It was difficult as a rule to identify any objective criteria for granting or refusing permits; this means that the permit policy violated the principle of individualized treatment of prisoners. The article ends with general conclusions from the practice followed so far and with postulates de lege ferenda formulated on the grounds of amendments introduced by the new PEC of 6 June 1997. Not going into details of those amendments, it has to be stated that they trend towards extension of the legal possibilities of granting permits and of the length of leave thus granted. In the authors’ opinion, most of the amendments deserve to be praised which is of course not to say that none of them raise any reservations. It has to be stressed, though, that the appraisals are not too categorical as the new provisions (which enter into force on 1 September 1998) leave a considerable freedom of interpretation. The practice of their application should therefore be monitored closely to begin with; the findings will then help to verify pertinence of statutory regulations of the granting of permits to temporarily leave prison.

Orzeczone kary pozbawienia wolności a długość faktycznego pobytu w więzieniu (na przykładzie skazanych za przestępstwa z użyciem przemocy)

51%

Gruszczyńska B., Kulma R., Marczewski M., Siemaszko A.

Archiwum Kryminologii

2000

issue XXV

193-223

Stalking w Polsce. Rozmiary-formy-skutki. Raport z badania nt. uporczywego nękania

45%

Siemaszko A., Woźniakowska-Fajst D., Gruszczyńska B., Marczewski M., Ostaszewski P.

Archiwum Kryminologii

2010

issue XXXII

45-80

The phenomenon of stalking had not been studied extensively and the real scale, its forms, and consequences had remained unknown. For this reason, in December 2009, the Minister of Justice requested the Institute of Justice to conduct a research concerning stalking. It was performed by TNS OBOP in December last year on a representative, random sample of households. Over 10 thousand respondents were questioned in computer assisted telephone interviews. This is ten times more than in typical public opinion polls which undoubtedly increases credibility of the results. Every tenth respondent (9,9%) appeared to have experience stalking. This is more than expected. It these results were to be extrapolated on the whole Polish population over 18 (and there are significant ground for such extrapolation as the sample was representative), it could be estimated that as much as 3 million of adult Poles have experienced stalking. In almost half of the cases, stalking happened repeatedly and 80% of victims experienced stalking within past five years. On the average, stalking lasted for less than a year, most often from a week to three months, but as much as 15% of victims were stalked for at least three years. Every fifth person declared they are still stalked at the moment. The most common methods of stalking were: spreading slander, lies and gossip (70% of responses), getting in touch with the aid of third parties (55%), threats or blackmail and “telephone persecution” (almost half of responses). Every third victim indicated also accosting or threatening family members, physical stalking (persistent following) and unwanted correspondence. It needs to be emphasised that stalking most often appeared in more than one form at a time (e.g. following – phone calls - getting in touch with the aid of third parties). As much as three quarters of victims regarded staling as serious, one third as very serious. These extremely high percentages prove that stalking is a considerable problem – almost a social one. This is confirmed by its effects declared by respondents. Almost 70% of victims experienced negative effects of stalking. More than a half reported psychological problems (depressed mood or depression, anxiety) every fourth physical ones (pains, aches, nausea, eating disorders). Because of these, 45% of the victims sought medical consultation which proves how serious the problems were. One third of the harmed declared financial or general consequences (cost of legal fees, need to change their lifestyle, change of telephone number, sometimes even change of residence). Although as expected most perpetrators were persons known by the victims (a current or ex-partner in every fourth case), a significant number of strangers needs to be reported (one quarter). Almost 40% of stalking victims asked for help, out of which only a half to prosecution organs – this is as little as 20%.

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Orzeczone kary pozbawienia wolności a długość faktycznego pobytu w więzieniu (na przykładzie skazanych za przestępstwa z użyciem przemocy)

Stalking w Polsce. Rozmiary-formy-skutki. Raport z badania nt. uporczywego nękania