The standardized HCHI for each year for Hungary was calculated by dividing the estimated yearly population13 size into the TCH to yield the HCHI in that time period for that area. The TCH decreased by 1.3 % between 2016 (33 140 816) and 2017 (34 207 073), but the standardized HCHI (2016: 0.29, 2017: 0.32) shows the opposite trend. This means that the harm for one person has the reverse trend than the TCH by year, meaning that despite the decrease of the number of inci-dents and the TCH, the harm by person is increasing.
Examining the distribution of offenses by crime group in the examined time period, can be stated that he most crimes are committed against health (21.56
%–25.29 %), or public confidence (14.54 %–17.55 %), or property (12.14 %–12.14
%). Offenses against health mainly contain crimes related to drug, which decreased between 2015 and 2016, but significantly increased by 2017. Offenses against pub-lic confidence contain crimes, especially frauds related to private documents, individual identifies and identification documents, and have a similar trend, a decrease between 2015 (17.55%) and 2016 (14.54%) followed by an increase in 2017 (17.19%). Offenses against property, which include for example fraud, theft, usu-ry and vandalism (the Hungarian Criminal Code distinguish property crime from violent crimes against property, which include extortion, robbery, plundering and private justice) increased significantly between 2015 (14.07%) and 2016 (21.14%), followed by a significant decrease in 2017 (12.24%). These three crime groups contain more than half of the all TCH, meaning that police agencies need to focus and target these crimes, in order to reduce the harm.
The highest HST in 2017 related to possession of narcotic drugs (38.51%), followed by forgery of administrative documents (17.89%) and theft (13.24%).
The possession of narcotic drugs has an increasing trend between 2015 and 2017, and the other two crime categories have decreased between 2015 and 2016, fol-lowed by a significant increase in 2017.
The highest TCH’s are more associated with criminal offenses related to drugs (6 372 020.66), followed by forgery (2 959 286.23) and theft (2 190 359.47).
The results suggest that law enforcement needs to develop more effective strategies to reduce crime harm related to drugs. Two Hungarian national strat-egies have been developed and implemented in order to reduce the harm asso-ciated with drug crimes, and to improve the citizens consciousness and sobriety.14 13 Hungarian Central Statistical Office: “Population (2008–2019)”, 2019, https://www.ksh.
hu/docs/hun/eurostat_tablak/tabl/tps00001.html. (accessed: 02.05.2019)
14 For more information: National Assembly Decision 106/2009. (XII. 21.) about the Na-tional Strategy for Tackling the Drugs Problem and NaNa-tional Assembly Decision 80/2013.
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4.2. HCHI to improve trust and confidence
The European Crime Victims Survey found that the second and third reason why victims are not reporting crime is that the police could not or would not do any-thing.15 “The relationship between citizens and the police assumes that the level of trust in the police reflects the actions of the police”16. Meaning that the trust and confidence of police can improve, if the citizen who reported the crime, sees that the police apprehends and prosecutes the offender. On the other hand, if the police close the investigation without prosecution or diversion, then the trust and confidence cannot improve, and can even lead to the opposite result. This section analyses those crime groups which have a relatively high TCH (TCH>500 000) and the investigation was closed without prosecution or diversion.
The number of refused reports (2015: 8 909, 2016: 8 129, 2017: 6 907) are de-creasing, and the number of diversions (2015: 8 177, 2016: 8 732, 2017: 8 848) and the category of others (2015: 11 796, 2016: 13 051, 2017: 12 379) are increased in between 2015 and 2017. All the other categories – closed investigation without prosecution (2015: 31 068, 2016: 27 306. 2017: 25 595), prosecuted (2015: 45 002, 2016: 60 033, 2017: 39 790) – had a fluctuating trend between the examined time period. Investigations closed without prosecution can have an effect on the trust and confidence, the percentage of prosecution was 29.6% in 2015, 23.29% in 2016, and 27.37% in 2017, means that more than one-fifth of all reported crime was not resulted prosecution, and can influence negatively the trust and confidence. The total number of reports are increased by almost 10%, further research is needed to analyse the reasons behind of it.
The analysis excluded those crime groups where the TCH is less than 500 000.
The total TCH in 2017 was 30 343 136.20 and the TCH for crimes where the in-vestigation was closed was 9 192 011.08, meaning that 30.3% of reported harm was not resulted in prosecution or diversion. The refused reports were excluded from the analysis because it contains incidents that were not crimes, or they were refused for other reason declared by law.
More than half of the offenses against public security (58.87%) reports (more than 85% is related to criminal offenses with firearms and ammunition) were
(X. 16.) about the National Anti-Drug Strategy 2013-2020
15 J. J. M. van Dijk – John van Kesteren–Paul Smit: Criminal Victimisation in International Perspective: Key Findings from the 2004-2005 ICVS and EU ICS, Den Haag, United Nations, 2007, 257.
16 Juha Kääriäinen – Reino Sirén: “Trust in the Police, Generalized Trust and Reporting Crime”. European Journal of Criminology 8, 2011, no. 1., 67. https://doi.org/10.1177/
1477370810376562.
84
closed without prosecution. Followed by offenses against sexual freedom and sexual offenses (45.04%) and offenses against the judicial system (38.70%). The lowest percentage is linked to offenses relating to counterfeiting currencies and philatelic forgeries (7.19%), and crimes of corruption (6.13%), meaning that crimes of corruption have the highest percentage of reports that resulted prosecution or diversion (85.58%). According to Transparency International „Hungary and Malta have seen the sharpest decline in their respective Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) scores in recent years, allowing corruption to worsen”17. Also, the CPI had decreased by nine points between 2012 and 2018. Meaning that corrup-tion is a main issue in Hungary, but victims’ and witnesses’ reports of it was re-sulted in prosecution (85.85%).
Looking at crime groups which have the more than 60% of prosecution or diversion after crimes of corruption, are offenses against public officials (75.39%), crimes against intellectual property rights (67.23%) and criminal offenses against public confidence (60.26 %).
To improve trust and confidence police needs to focus on crimes against public security, sexual freedom and sexual offenses, and judicial system.
5. Conclusion
This article has demonstrated that a CHI can be calculated in Hungary, based on the relevant sections of the Hungarian Criminal Code. The HCHI can be a new way to understand the trends of crime and public safety, and more useful than the simple count of crime incidents. The limitation of the work – as mentioned in the methods section – is the reliability of the publicly available data, especial-ly the statistics of reported crimes. Findings show that the harm for one person is increasing, despite the decreasing trend of the total TCH. The most harm is related to crimes against health, public confidence or property, which contain more than half of the TCH. Consequentially police need to develop and implement strategies that are more useful to reduce harm related to these crimes, especial-ly crimes associated to drug. To improve the trust and confidence of police, agen-cies need to focus on crimes against public security, sexual freedom and sexual offenses, and judicial system, because these crimes have the highest number of closed investigations without prosecution or diversion.
17 Transparency International: “Western Europe and EU: Stagnating Anti-Corruption Efforts and Weakening Democratic Institutions’”, 2019. https://www.transparency.org/news/
feature/cpi2018-western-europe-eu-regional-analysis (accessed: 01.05.2019)
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