The Irrationality of Contacting the Police: Crime Reporting in Contexts of Mistrust

Abstract

Why people turn to weak, corrupt and/or failing criminal justice institutions in the event of victimization is the central question motivating this dissertation. I take a multidisciplinary approach to understanding citizen-initiated contact of the police in the wake of property crime victimization in contexts where not only crime is frequent, but these state actors are highly ineffective, untrustworthy, and corrupt. This dissertation draws upon the literatures from political science, sociology, psychology, and criminology and examines the macro and micro-level determinants of citizen-initiated police contact (crime reporting) in the most violent and crime-ridden region of the world: Latin America. This project also examines the case of Peru—the country in the region with the highest property crime rates, yet stubbornly low reporting rates. Using quantitative methodology, publicly available cross-national and national survey data, as well as two original surveys conducted in Lima, this dissertation finds that state characteristics, particularly democratic state strength and the rule of law, social characteristics, especially social class and concentrated social disadvantage, and psychological characteristics, specifically Justice Sensitivity, play important roles in determining individual behavior in contacting the police.