Abstract
In Poland, only about one in two crimes is reported to police, but there is an
another type of data source that shows the rest of crimes. By directly questioning
victims about their experiences, it is possible to generate information about the socalled
dark figure of crime, i.e. about those incidents that go either unreported or
unrecorded by the police.
The paper presents the analysis of the researches on the dark figure of crime of
three selected housing estates in Łód : D browa (tower blocks), Julianów (single
housing) and Nowe Miasto (downtown). Various parts of the paper analyze the
research results on reporting rate and risk of victimization. The socio-demographic
characteristics of residents which influence the level of fear were also studied. The
survey also confirmed a correlation between the sense of security and the level of
unrecorded crime. The residents of Nowe Miasto, for example, lowly assess their
personal security (although it has the average recorded crime rate) because of the
highest victimization rate.