Expert (A.Vilks) Comments on EU Victimisation Survey Questionnaire Module
ANNEX5
Expert (A.Vilks) comments on EU Victimisation Survey Questionnaire Module
The Central Statistical Bureau of the Republic of Latvia (henceforth – CSB) has prepared the translation of the questionnairefor the EU Victimisation survey (on the level of security and violence of the European population), in generalit is done on a high professional level. Legal terms used in the questionnaire have been translated and applied proficiently with appropriate methodologically based contents. From the legal terminological and criminological point of view the questions and versions of answers of the questionnaire do not cause any objections or uncertainty. Where withresults obtained in the survey could be legally correct and exact enough.
However, it should be marked that obtaining of representative and objective data on the common security of the population and the level of violence does not depend only on the quality of the applied set of tools (questionnaire) and the legal compliance of its contents. It is not less important to understand correctly the legal vocabulary, when interviewing respondents and explaining to them the point of the questions, consulting respondents and explaining to them the point of crime, signs of its expression, its qualifying parameters.
The survey questionnaire includes questions about 15 corpus delicti or their groups (types of offence). I would like to draw attention to definitions of particular crime and their features.
Most of the questions in the questionnaire are referable not directly to corpus delicti that involve violence but to crime of selfish nature or crime tended to obtain property in a way that is criminally punishable or criminal. Wherewith the central goal of the survey – to investigate the level of violence in Latvia (and also in the EU) – could be achieved not precisely enough.
In the questionnaire on the basis of respondents’ answers it is established to what extent in Latvia there are spread: theft of cars; theft from cars; car damage; theft of motor cycles, scooters, mopeds; theft of bicycles; burglary; other burglaries; property damage; robbery; consumer fraud; bribery; phishing; identity fraud; sexual harassment.
It would be purposeful for interviewers to know that thefts in Latvia, as showcriminal statistics (data bases of the Ministry of the Interior) and forensic statistics (the data base of the Court Administration of the Ministry of Justice), as well as results of optional surveys, are the most widespread crime. The totality of these types of crime and offence with selfish motivation amount to 70-80% in the totality of registered crime, but in optional surveys it can be even higher. It is quite possible that also the CSB survey will approve the mentioned tendency. Wherewith, interviewers have to be ready to reflect precisely the answers of respondents about theft of cars, theft from cars, burglary, consumer fraud, phishing, identity fraud and other signs and peculiarities of crime.
Section 175 of the Criminal Law of the Republic of Latvia provides for criminal liability for thefts. According to this section theft is concealed or overt stealing (theft) of the movable property of another. Part 3 of the mentioned section prescribes for a theft if it has been committed by entering a residential unit or other premises, or it has been committed from a storage facility, from a system connecting storage facilities, or from a means of transport. At present from the legal point of view the lawmaker uses the term “theft of car” but not “stealing of motor vehicle”.
According to Section 176 of the Criminal Law of the Republic of Latviarobbery is theft of movable property of another associated with violence or threatened violence.
For robbery charcteristic is a violent kind of stealing movable property, morover, this violence is dangerous to person’s life or health.
The point of roberry is associated with an attack if it is associated with violence that is dangerous to victim’s life or health, or threatened violence. So the dangerous action as an attack is characterised by its violent nature and its intensity. Let us remember that the offender outrages also in case of overt theft but it is not dangerous to victim’s life or health but the attack with an aim to rob is just associated with such violence.
As violence should be understood only such violence, the direct object of which is a human being. Violence is acknowledgeable as dangerous to person’s health if as a result of it the victim could be inflicted slight bodily injuries with short-term health disorders from 7 to 21 days or at least insignificant lasting disablement to the extent of 5%.
As threatened violence should be understood threat, expressed orally or otherwise (with gestures, threatening pose, showing weapons), to use against the victim such violence that could cause death or inflict bodily injuries dangerous to life or health.
Threat is to be regarded as real also in case if the offender when attacking has demonstrated objects that outwardly resemble weapons but in reality they are not weapons (a mock-up, a pop gun, a signal pistol, etc. is used) but the victim has regarded them as real so the danger to his life and health is adequate, besides, the offernder has perceived them just as real.
In case of robbery the offender threatens to use violence immediately with an aim at once to paralyse the victim’s will to oppose or to overcome his opposition and straightaway to acquire property or to keep the property that has been violently taken. Violence is used also when executing such crime as blackmailing. Blackmailing is associated with a demand without any legal base to give property or rights to property or to perform any actions of property character by threatening with violence against the victim or his people, by threatening to divulge dishonourable information about the victim or his people, by threatening to destroy their property or to cause them other material injury. In legal perception we understand with it mental violence as a means that rouses to meet the enounced demand. Threat should be true and real, i.e., the victim should perceive it as absolutely realizable. Only such intimidation could have an impact on him psychologically and motivate to behave as the blackmailer demands. Threat can be addressed to the victim himself, to whom the demand is directed, and, as it is said in the law, to his people.
Threatened violence in case of blackmailing should be insulated from threatened violence in case of robbery. As to its nature blackmailing threat is associated with a condition that it will be realized when the time stated by the offender is over and the victim does not meet the demands. Threatened violence can be enounced in any way –both orally and in written form, directly and indirectly with the help of other persons or via means of communication, etc. Threat should be real but its realization should endanger perilously enough the life of the victim or his people or cause damage to their health.
In case of blackmailing the offender puts off the obtaining of property. It is the main difference between blackmailing and robbery if the victim’s will is overcome with the help of threat.
The questionnaire includes questions on consumer fraud. Section 204 of the Criminal Law provides for criminal liability in case of defrauding purchasers or customers. The mentioned crime manifests itself in active operations like: defrauding purchasers or customers by short measure or weight, having received payment for goods with heavier weights (service that is of larger measure or takes greater amount of work), deception of purchasers or customers with characterization of goods or services (fraud about goods’ high quality, counterfeiting a trade mark, etc.), giving of miscounted remnant for the purchased goods or the provided service. Consumer fraud can manifest itself also as violation of trading provisions by certain persons (Section 205 of the Criminal Law). This kind of fraud can manifest itself by, e.g., not placing price marks with samples in shop-windows and show-cases, selling alcoholic drinks to persons that are under the age of 18 years.
As rather specific crime should be mentioned phishing and identity fraud. The Criminal Law of the Republic of Latvia provides for liability for arbitrary accessing an automated data processing system (Section 241 of the Criminal Law). The mentioned corpus delicti can be classified if an authorised person (without a permission of a user or owner to use it) accesses an automated data processing system (computer’s workstation, information medium, connected aggregates) and uses (obtains, acquaints himself with) information put into it.
Identity fraud is a new kind of criminal activities among crime of economic character. It is associated with another person using the victim’s identity data of selfish intent to gain material or other kind of benefit from it. As samples of the mentioned kind of crime can be mentioned: theft of person’s passport or other identification documents (driver’s licence, invalid’s or student’s certificate) and their use in the name of the owner; illegal use of account cards, credit cards or other payment documents; fraud in the Internet, etc. It can be assumed that nowadays this kind of crime is rapidly growing.
In previously conducted international surveys of crime victims that were methodologically secured by UNICRI (the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute - and organized by HEUNI (the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control - was studied the prevalence of the following crime: theft of cars; theft from cars; car vandalism (car damage); theft of motor cycles, scooters, mopeds; theft of bicycles; burglary; attempted burglary; robbery; theft of personal possessions (pickpocketing, theft in the place of work, means of transport, in the places of entertainment, on the street); sexual harassment (touching, attack, seizing in public places, transport, cinema, school, at work, in places of entertainment, at home, etc.), that was studied only in regard to women; attack or threatened attack (threat to a person at home, in the street, at school, in the transport, at work, in the places of entertainment, - corpus delicti could express itself also as hooliganism, making threats of psychic or physical character for a concrete person); fraud of customers by selling or supplying goods that mismatch with their description or price; coming into contact with corruption (an officer, customs officer, policeman or some other person has asked or alluded that it is necessary to bribe for doing some service).
In victimisation surveys that have been conducted since 1994 by the Criminological Research Centre (in 2006 – the Latvian Association of Independent Criminologists (now – the Latvian Society of Criminologists)) the number of respondents has been 1100-1400 persons in Riga and other regions of Latvia. The survey data were representative enough and in general reflected the real crime situation in the country.