engleski

Juvenile crime in 21st century: really escalating problem or just a media sensation? The case of Croatia

Purpose The main goal of the paper is to analyse dynamics of juvenile crime, and to identify long-term tendencies in the development of this negative social phenomena in Croatia in this century. Design/Methodology/Approach Because of the rule of appropriate scope for discretion is to be allowed at all stages of proceedings and at different levels of juvenile justice administration, data on reported crime are the most appropriate official source of data on juvenile crime. Based on official police statistics, the analysis of the dynamics and average rate of change are used to reveal and compare trends in reported overall, violent, and juvenile property crime in Croatia between 2000 and 2013. Model of a linear trend is used to make a prediction of future short-time trends in juvenile overall, violent, and property crime in Croatia. Findings Though the total number of reported juvenile crime is stable or even slightly declining over the observed period, there are exceptional increases or declines in certain years and in certain offences, which can create a wrong impression about alarming changes. It especially applies to the oscillations of the number of reported juvenile homicide and rape, because of small absolute numbers. Substantial and significant fluctuations over observed period, are found in reported rates for robbery and theft: there is decrease in reported theft and increase in reported robbery. So, although property crime is still dominating juvenile criminal activity, it becomes more violent over the observed period. Originality/Value It is often assumed that social changes caused by political and economic transformations, lead directly to the upturn in crime and other forms of deviance. In Croatia, but also in other post-socialist countries in Central Eastern Europe, there are popular beliefs of dramatic increase in juvenile crime rates since late 1990s. Although these ideas are strongly supported by media coverage, they are not always adequately confirmed by official crime statistics, so they are too simplified and incomplete for any meaningful discussion. Results of this study reveal how such cursory review obscures some long-term and significant changes in juvenile crime which are really indicative when speaking about juvenile crime under conditions of intensive social change.

Juvenile; overall crime; violent crime; property crime; Croatia; trends; tendencies; social change

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