Incorporating Survey Perceptions of Public Safety and Security Variables in Crime Rate Analyses for the Visegrád Group (V4) Countries of Central Europe
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors and editors,
This paper is interesting. It compares mental maps about space and crime and safety perceptions among residents.
It presents multiple data points.
The paper is comparative, thorough, and convincing.
A few things to fix (non-exhaustive):
P 8 World Bank should be capitalized
Fix formatting footnote 11
P 16 authors and journal copy editors can fix the position of graphs and titles. Great data!
There is conclusion section missing that makes more out of the comparisons between actual crime and perceptions of crime.
Best wishes.
Author Response
Authors are really thankful for the reviews and valuable input to improve the draft. Motivational comments are well appreciated by authors. Please find the attached for detailed answers to comments. Thank you
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The study presents an interesting subject matter with important practical applications. I will now make a number of suggestions that I consider can improve the quality of the manuscript.
In terms of format, I recommend modifying the structure of the manuscript to conform to the guidelines generally accepted by scientific journals. Thus, the Literature Review should be presented immediately after the introduction, in the following order: introduction, literature review, research questions, methodology, results, discussion and conclusions. Additionally, the format of the references is not the one indicated in the journal's guidelines, so authors should modify them.
In terms of content, the introduction could include the impact of crime rates and perceptions of risk on citizens in order to outline the practical implications of the research. For example, there is evidence that user mobility is affected by users' perceived safety (e.g. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2020.00042).
In the Research questions section I recommend including in detail the objectives of the research, as well as the main hypotheses of the study.
The methodology should be further developed, including ethical aspects of the study, the data analysis and the analysed questionnaire. It is especially important to state and define the variables analysed and the items of the questionnaire.
The results are well presented. However, I consider that the discussion could be further developed. This section should consist of explaining and contrasting the results of the study with other similar research in order to explain the data obtained. Thus, the authors should answer questions such as: were the results in line with expectations, are the results congruent with other similar research? And, if not, which elements explain the discrepancies that have occurred?
Author Response
Authors are very thankful for detailed comments and review to improve the manuscript up to the publication standards. We appreciate the positive remarks that lead us through changes with motivation within deadline. Attached are the detailed responses to the comments and recommendations, as reflected in revised manuscript. Thank you
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have taken into account the suggestions I provided in my previous review, so I consider that the manuscript is suitable for publication.
