Relatively limited attention has been paid by scholars to explore the crime reporting behavior of white-collar crime victims, especially in developing countries, such as Azerbaijan, where some forms of white-collar crimes are widespread. Using the dataset of the first nationwide victimization survey (n = 1,214) in Azerbaijan, the current paper attempts to explore the determinants of crime reporting among 4 specific white-collar offense (fraud, request for bribery, sale of unsafe good and sale of unsafe food for consumption) among randomly selected, yet unrepresentative subsample of victims (n = 186). Offenses were categorized in two groups for analysis—financial/economic offenses and non-financial/economic offenses, hence two models in a binary logistic regression analysis. The results indicate that the extent of financial loss predicts the crime reporting behavior for victims of financial offenses. Those with a higher level of the perceived probability of being victimized by a violent crime were more likely to have notified the authorities of their victimization. Applicable for non-financial crimes only, the level of income has an inverse association with a decision to invoke the law. The relationship of a victim to an offender predicted a decision to contact the authorities—cases in which the offender was identified as a stranger were less likely to be reported to the law enforcement authorities than cases in which the offender had not been identified. No socio-demographic variable has a predictive capacity for either crime category. In addition, as the main motives for not mobilizing the law, almost half of the cases have been resolved in between the offender and victims, such as through compensation. The findings have several theoretical implications for white-collar crime literature. Suggestions for further research, as well as the limitations, are discussed toward the end of the paper.

Despite being a post-conflict society, Azerbaijan now enjoys relatively low levels of gun crime and firearm ownership. Adopting a data triangulation approach, this study explored the attitude of the self-select sample (n = 589) in Azerbaijan on guns and gun laws regulating the acquisition of guns, in addition to qualitative interviews. The majority of the participants were content with the current restrictive gun control policies and legislation. Firearms were viewed mostly as an instrument for hunting and self-defence. Qualitative interviews among experts and respondents with experience of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (n = 19) largely supplemented the findings obtained through the online survey and provided in-depth insights into the meanings attached to firearms. This explorative study contributes to our understanding of the gunscape in the post-communist and post-conflict society that does not suffer from a gun epidemic. From a comparative perspective, the perceptions of Azerbaijani respondents indicate the absence of "conflict mentality" observed in some other conflict-stricken regions, as well as an extremely limited degree of cultural acceptance of guns as honourable and symbolic items to possess.

The majority of the studies exploring the relationship between socioeconomic factors and crime levels are confined to major industrialized nations. As a post-Soviet, transitional economy with a predominantly Muslim population, Azerbaijan provides a different setting to explore how socioeconomic indicators affect police-recorded violent and property crime levels across cities and districts. This study finds a positive relationship between GRP per capita, the proportion of pupils admitted to university and population size property crime levels. The relationship was linear in all cases. The geographical units with more social benefit (pensions, disability, and family care) recipients had lower acquisitive crime levels, though the significance was marginal. The higher the number of targeted social assistance recipients for poverty alleviation is, the higher the rate of violent crime is, which differs from the findings of similar previous studies. Overall, socioeconomic predictors were significantly better in explaining variations for offences against the property (r=.481) than violent crimes (r=.073). These findings suggest that different crime types are better explained by different economic indicators in the Azerbaijani context. Furthermore, the study shows that most of the covariates function in ways which are observed in the societies covered by the literature.

Using the dataset of the first nationwide victimization survey in Azerbaijan, the current paper analyzed whether home security systems have a relationship with the perceived probability of property crime victimization. The ordinal logistic regression analysis was employed. The first set of results examining the distribution of security systems identified that despite the impact of certain demographics correlates, perceived risk is not a significant correlate of possession or absence of security systems. The presence of security measures at home was associated with a higher perceived probability of victimization level for acquisitive crimes. This study shows the importance of incorporating home security level as an independent variable. The choice of home as a unit of analysis when studying fear of victimization allowed us to ascertain not only the impact of home security systems on perceived victimization risks, but also to find out whether it is dwelling, demographic or neighborhood features that matter more in affecting sense of safety. The key findings of the study are that a) the level of home security systems is positively correlated with PPV, irrespective of individual-level characteristics, and b) perceived risk is not a statistically significant factor when it comes to a decision to purchase security systems.