Przestępczość na terenie Warszawy. Analiza ekologiczna

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6136682
AutoresAnna Kossowska (Instytut Nauk Prawnych, autor correspondente), Anna Kossowska Anna Kossowska (Instytut Nauk Prawnych PAN)
Ano1976
Fascículo7
Páginas141-263
Data de publicação1976-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoArchiwum Kryminologii (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2719-4280 • E-ISSN: 0066-6890
EditoraPolish Scientific Publishers PWN (PUBLISHER • PL)
DOI10.7420/ak1976b
OpenAlexW3200880129
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas10

This work is devoted to an analysis of the territorial differentiation of crime and delinquency in Warsaw and the establishment of the factors, conditioning it from the socio-economic and demographic point of view. The various Polish studies on the problem of delinquency in a big city milieu (differing substantially from one another, regarding the range of the phenomenon studied as well as the research methods used) point to the differentiation of the terrain of the big cities, subjected to studies, as to the degree of intensification of delinquency. One often comes across opinions that Warsaw, because of its war and post-war history, is not a typical city, where there could exist conditions for an unhampered influence of general ecological laws. During the Second World War Warsaw was utterly destroyed and efforts were made, when the city was being rebuilt, so that the various regions of the city would be uniform from the social point of view. The general balance of losses amounted in 1945 to approximately 70% of the city's buildings, and almost 100% of the most valuable complexes of buildings of the mid-town had been destroyed. Before the outbreak of the war in 1939 Warsaw had 1,282,000 inhabitants and when the city was liberated in 1945 only 162,000 people inhabited the capital, of whom 22,000 lives on the left bank of the river (mainly in the suburbs); in 1975 Warsaw had 1,300,000 inhabitants. According to estimates 700,000 Warsaw residents were killed and the remaining inhabitants were after the collapse of the Warsaw Uprising tin 1944 driven out of the city. Due to this deportation the Varsovians scattered all over the country and only part of them returned in 1944 to Warsaw. It is estimated that the main wave of return to Warsaw of its prewar inhabitants took place up to the year 1950, when the number of prewar Varsovians in Warsaw amounted to 500,000 (out of a total of 750,000). Thus, the remaining part of the residents of Poland's capital was a population either made up of migrants or due to the natural increase in population, or because new territories were incorporated into Warsaw. A stop was put to the initial spontaneous migration movement of the population from other regions to Warsaw in 1954 through the introduction of registration restrictions; this was caused by the fact that the building of new houses could not cope with the rate of growth of the population. The introduction of restrictions, checking the migration movement was not combined with putting the brake to the increase in employment, which brought in its wake an enormous, steady growth of the number of people daily commuting to work in Warsaw, sometimes from quite distant regions. Summing up, one could say that contemporary Warsaw is a city, which after almost complete destruction during the war has at a rapid rate been rebuilt, remodelled and markedly expanded as compared with its prewar shape. In principle, with the exception of relatively small parts of the city, present-day Warsaw cannot be compared with prewar Warsaw. It is being emphasized in studies, that a typical feature of postwar Warsaw is the lack of territorial segregation of the newcomers among the population, something which could be noticed in the city before the Second World War and is true today also of cities in Western Europe, America or other continents. In this city there are now no districts of traditional Varsovians and districts of the new-comers, especially from the countryside. The social changes in postwar Warsaw find their expression in the levelling of class and economic divisions between the population in the various residential areas. Social differences between the various districts also disappear at a rapid rate. It was the aim of the new social policy to shuffle the inhabitants from the social point of view, but partial studies conducted and observations revealed not only remnants of prewar aspects but also processes of some sort of selection, at the root of which lie once again economic reasons, as well as more complex psychological reasons. One of the factors differentiating the city as a whole, is the phenomenon of delinquency. This is being revealed by partial studies, of the delinquency in Warsaw, conducted during the course of the past 20 years, and concerning the various groups of offenders (mainly juvenile delinquents). The studies, to which this work is devoted, concentrate on the intensity of delinquency in the various regions of Warsaw. We have in mind here the differentiation of the city from the point of view of the intensity of various kinds of offences as well as the intensity of the number of delinquents inhabiting the various districts. Discussing the differentiation existing in the city in regard to delinquency we shall base ourselves on the administrative division of the city into districts, taking into account smaller regions, too i.e. what is called town planners’ regions. The table illustrates some of the characteristic features of these districts. These districts differ substantially from the point of view of socioeconomic features. And thus Praga North (VI) and Wola (IV) are the districts, with the biggest concentration of industry while the largest number of people employed in industry live in Praga North and Praga South (VII). The population of the various districts also differs in regard to their educational level: the highest percentage of people with at least secondary school education lives in Mid-town (district I), that with the lowest educational level in Praga North (VI). To this short characteristic should still be added that both Praga districts, situated on the right bank of the Vistula River were least destroyed during the war and there are more prewar Varsovians living there than in other districts. Especially in Praga North (VI) can be found regions which remained unchanged almost till now and which before the war were inhabited by the “lumpenproletariat” and a relatively large percentage of delinquent elements. The second division of the city used here was that into 79 town planners’ regions. This division was arranged for purposes of town planning and made it possible to set apart areas which were homogeneous from the urban and economic point of view. In our analysis this made it possible for us to set apart within each district some smaller regions, marked by a special intensification of delinquency. This study is based on statistical material of a dual type. We deal here with the official police statistics (containing data on the cleared up offences) for the various years between 1953—1973 (and in some cases also data from court records) as well as data especially collected by the Department of Criminology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, concerning almost all the offences reported to the police or which were revealed during investigations in 1968. This research was initiated in 1971, but material concerning the year 1969 could not be taken into consideration because of the amnesty nor that of 1970, which was the first year when the new penal code had become binding. During the course of the research- data were registered on special questionnaires, taken from the police investigation records, regarding offences committed in the area of Warsaw reported to the police in 1968 as well as the addresses of people, suspected of having committed them. When gathering these data certain types of offences of a specific nature were not taken into consideration, such as traffic, or fiscal offences or malfeasances in office. The analysis finally covered 82.4% of all the offences reported to the police in Warsaw in 1968, i.e. a total of 20,960 offences. The number of suspected individuals amounted to 12,257. Before the presentation of the results of the studies it should be recalled that, as is generally known, statistical data do not reflect the real extent of delinquency, not all the information about some the committed offences as being reported to the police and the officials entitled to prosecute. The dark number of offences that remain unrevealed, is everywhere a serious problem when examining the dimensions of delinquency. Presenting data regarding delinquency in Warsaw we want to start with a short comparison between delinquency in Warsaw and that of other cities in Poland. The intensity of offences committed in the area of Warsaw has markedly surpassed the average figure for delinquency in the whole of Poland. During the postwar period the gap between the figure for Warsaw and that of the whole of Poland was greater than before. While in 1938 there were 219.6 registered offences per 10,000 inhabitants of Warsaw (168.7 for the whole country), in the years 1965—1967 this coefficient amounted to 247.7 (142.3 for the whole country). The greater difference between the intensity of delinquency in Warsaw and the entire country can be explained mainly as being due to the large migration, following the almost complete destruction of Warsaw during the war. But for a number of years already, there is no longer a noticeable tendency for an increase in the difference of the dimensions of delinquency between Warsaw and the rest of the country. Comparing with other cities in Poland the number of reported offences in Warsaw is rather high, though it is by no means the highest (Warsaw is the largest city in Poland, the only one that has over one million inhabitants). The delinquency rates (i.e. the number of offences in relation to that of the inhabitants) as well as its structure are in Warsaw similar to an entire group of cities, with over 200,000 inhabitants. It should be emphasized that there are only slight differences between big and small towns as regards the intensity of delinquency, though there can be noticed a distinct difference in the structure of delinquency. While Warsaw — just as the remaining cities in Poland — is marked by a considerable number of offences against property, offences against the

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