THE CRIMINOLOGICAL PROFILE OF HUNGARIAN SMALL VILLAGES

Abstract

This study aims to analyse the smallest elements of the Hungarian settlement network with less than 500 inhabitants, with a focus on their criminological profile. The criminological characteristics of the settlements correlate with geographic characteristics, position in the spatial structure, inherited economic drawbacks, distribution of income, migration and many other social and economic features. According to my hypothesis, in case of these small villages, the above mentioned effects have an even stronger impact due to the weakness of their external connections. The study was carried out using a crime events and offenders dataset of a medium-term period (2009–2012). The research revealed that in general, small villages show a better, but distinct criminological structure, compared to towns (inhabitants between 5,000 and 25,000) and cities (more than 100,000 inhabitants) in Hungary. The lower rate of economic crimes, crimes against property, law and order, and the slightly higher rate of crimes against the person are among the most important characteristics of small villages. This is mainly caused by the concentration of goods in cities and the frequent occurrence of conflicts in the smaller settlements. Besides it is also remarkable that the rate of known offenders is the highest in case of the smallest settlements. This confirms the hypothesis, that the peripheral location and the cumulative economic, social and infrastructural disadvantages of the small villages intensify the reproduction process of crime (mostly violent crimes). Based on this tendency we can conclude that in order to stop the reproduction of crime we should pay more attention to the coming generations of the smallest communities and the complex handling of their cumulative and inherited drawbacks. The social institutional framework and the civil organizations seem to be the most suitable for this role, as their activity facilitate the social integration.