Burglary victims and the response of the police: Findings from a Hungarian city Available to Purchase

Reports on a survey of burglary victims in Hungary, focusing on both their experiences of the crime and their perceptions of the way the police handled the incident. Using police records as a sampling frame, interviews were conducted with 207 victims in Miskolc, one of the largest cities in the country. The impact of the burglaries on victims was considerable. However help from specialist agencies were negligable among our sample. The extent to which the “new” police provide a service to crime victims is thus doubly important. Analysis suggested that victims were generally positive towards the police, felt police services had improved in recent years, and saw the police as relatively sympathetic towards victims. Victims were considerably more positive in their evaluations than were similar victims in Poland. The reasons for this are unclear but may be related to both police‐related differences and wider differences, such as whether or not victims are insured. What is clear, though, is that marked contrasts are emerging between different countries in transition, and these need to be further assessed in future research.