Who reports crime? Citizen engagement with the police in Russia and Georgia

Journal article

Lauren A. McCarthy, Scott Gehlbach, Timothy Frye, Noah Buckley
Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 73(1), 2021, pp. 8-35

DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2020.1851354

Cite

APA Click to copy
McCarthy, L. A., Gehlbach, S., Frye, T., & Buckley, N. (2021). Who reports crime? Citizen engagement with the police in Russia and Georgia. Europe-Asia Studies, 73(1), 8–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2020.1851354

Chicago/Turabian Click to copy
McCarthy, Lauren A., Scott Gehlbach, Timothy Frye, and Noah Buckley. “Who Reports Crime? Citizen Engagement with the Police in Russia and Georgia.” Europe-Asia Studies 73, no. 1 (2021): 8–35.

MLA Click to copy
McCarthy, Lauren A., et al. “Who Reports Crime? Citizen Engagement with the Police in Russia and Georgia.” Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 73, no. 1, 2021, pp. 8–35, doi:10.1080/09668136.2020.1851354.

BibTeX Click to copy

@article{mccarthy2021a,
  title = {Who reports crime? Citizen engagement with the police in Russia and Georgia},
  year = {2021},
  issue = {1},
  journal = {Europe-Asia Studies},
  pages = {8-35},
  volume = {73},
  doi = {10.1080/09668136.2020.1851354},
  author = {McCarthy, Lauren A. and Gehlbach, Scott and Frye, Timothy and Buckley, Noah}
}

Abstract

What factors affect citizens' engagement with the state? We explore this question through a study of victims' and bystanders' willingness to report crimes to the police, using data from survey experiments conducted in Russia and Georgia. We find that citizens' willingness to report in both countries is strongly influenced by the nature of the crime, but not generally by instruments that the state might use to encourage greater reporting. Our results recommend skepticism about the ability of governments to easily engineer citizens' engagement with the state.