The dynamics of victimization of the Russian population: A sociological evaluation

Today Russia takes serious measures to reduce victimization though most of them are based on the analysis of official sources, which significantly reduces the effectiveness of the fight against crime. The research aims at identifying victimological trends in Russia for the period of 2009-2015. The empirical basis of the work are the results of the monitoring of personal security and activities of the internal affairs bodies of Russia, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 2014-2015, the monitoring was conducted by the Russian State Social University by the standardized personal interview at the respondents’ places of residence in 85 subjects of the Russian Federation: the adults aged 18 and over were interviewed according to the all-Russian combined three-stage sample of households. 48,800 respondents were interviewed - citizens of Russia permanently residing at the places of registration at the time of the survey and representing the adult population of Russia by sex, age and place of residence (city-village) for each subject and for the Russian Federation as a whole. The article indicates the general level of victimization and the structure of criminal attacks, the rating of crimes and the dynamics of the victims’ recourses to the bodies of internal affairs; the reasons for non-coming to the police; the indicators of citizens’ concerns with criminal attacks on life, health and property; the dynamics of crime fears, and the social portrait of the victim. The results of the study reveal a significant increase in the number of crimes involving computer technologies, which is almost not shown by the official statistics. The main ways to prevent crimes should be improvement of the mechanisms for re-socialization of victims, reduction in the potential victimization, prevention of recidivist victimization, and the restoration of social justice.