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Most victims of crimes are women while the least vulnerable are children, a research by the National Crime Research Centre (NCRC) has revealed.

The research released on Monday also revealed that house-breaking and general stealing were the most prevalent crimes and that economic status, gender and age contributed to the vulnerability of the victims of crime.

Unemployment, alcohol and weak law enforcement were identified as some of the factors contribute to crime, according to the report.

The NCRC undertook a National Crime Victimization survey to establish the trends of crime victimisation where it was found that the main victims of crimes in the localities covered were women (77.4 per cent), men (57.3 per cent), youths (36.1 percent), elderly persons (26.5 percent), and children (20 per cent).

The survey identified factors leading to certain categories of persons being more vulnerable to crime victimisation as economic status (75.8 per cent), gender (49.4 per cent), age (41.6 per cent), lifestyle (36.8 per cent) social background (17.3 per cent), literacy status (11.6 per cent), and marital status (6.2 per cent).

The findings of the survey established that about 50 per cent of the respondents had been direct victims of crime.

According to the survey, the most prevalent crimes experienced were highlighted as housebreaking (28.5 per cent), general stealing (26.6 per cent), theft of stock (20.7 per cent), burglary (12.9 per cent), stealing from a person (16.6 per cent), and robbery with violence (9.8 per cent).

The study indicated the consequences of crime victimisation as loss of property (84.3 per cent), public mistrust and fear (58.8 per cent).