Reluctance to report criminal incidents: limited access to justice, social exclusion, and gender

• Published in: European journal of law and economics Vol. 55; no. 1; pp. 145 - 166
• Main Authors: Akarçay, Ayça, Polat, Sezgin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.02.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Access; Commercial Law; Criminal justice; Decision making; Democracy; Economic status; Economics; Economics and Finance; Efficiency; European Integration; Gender; International organizations; Law and Economics; Legislation; Life satisfaction; Low income groups; Per capita; Perceptions; Polls & surveys; Probability; Public Finance; Rule of law; Social exclusion; Social justice; Social pressure; Socioeconomic factors; Socioeconomic status; Women; C31; O12; C21; Access to justice; Social exclusion; Gender; K10; Life satisfaction survey; Z13
• ISSN: 0929-1261; 1572-9990; 1572-9346
• DOI: 10.1007/s10657-022-09748-3

Measures of access to justice mainly use indicators from judicial statistics or legislation whereas subjective perceptions or attitudes are often measured by survey questions related to judicial services. Using Turkey’s Life Satisfaction Survey, we consider reluctance to report an experienced criminal incident, which is a factual statement, as an objective indicator affecting demand for and access to justice. We identify correlates of reluctance to report and find that poor socio-economic status is negatively associated with the probability of reporting a criminal incident, and that the impact is greater for women. Perceived social pressures related to gender and level of income adversely affect their probability of reporting, whereas men are not affected by social pressure in their decision to report criminal incidents. We then relate the probability of reluctance to report to the probability of giving a no opinion response to questions on perceptions of satisfaction with judicial services. We find that the two are correlated, providing evidence for the relationship between exclusion from access to justice and voice.