Chapter 2 Flashcards
What are Self-Report Questionnaires?
Self Report Questionnaires usually consists of a series of questions answered by respondents, who are usually assured anonymity.
What situations would self report questionnaires be used?
The questionnaire may be mailed to respondents, administered in a group situation such as a high-school cafe, prison cafeteria or circulated at work or school
What is a drawback of self report questionnaires?
A researcher does not actually observer the behaviour of the people filling out the survey and “asking people about their behaviour is a poor way of observing it”
People could also misrepresent themselves, lie etc
What is the difference between a structured and unstructured interview?
Structured follows a set pattern for each respondent interviewed while a unstructured interview is unscripted and allows for exploration
What are victimization surveys
Victimization surveys are surveys that are usually distributed randomly over the phone to get better data regarding unreported crimes
What is the main purpose of victimization surveys?
To reduce the dark area of statistics that are not collected by the police force
What are some problems that victimization surveys can face?
Findings can be distorted by poorly worded questions, selective or faulty memory, deliberate deception and reluctance to report.
Due to the survey being random, a more dominant demographic may be interviewed more than others (homemakers compared to commuters)
What are three types of field observation?
Participant Observation- joining in the activities of the people getting studied
Nonparticipant field research- taking notes and asking questions but remaining an outsider
Staged activity analysis- subjects are asked to reconstruct and stimulate their past deviant activities…
Participant Observation
joining in the activities of the people getting studied
Nonparticipant Field Research
Taking notes and asking questions but remanning an outsider
Staged activity analysis
Subjects are asked to “reconstruct and simulate” their past deviant activities as closely as possible. allowing the researchers to “participate” in the reenactment
UCR 1.0
Uniform Crime Report System, contains information that police offers have reported
Very limited information due to only the most serious offence being recorded in the system (if a rape and murder happened, the rape charge would not recorded in the UCR 1.0)
UCR 2
Takes an incident based approach, this allows researchers to access information regarding all parties involved with the crime and access such information such as alcohol, relationship of parties, weapon specifics ect
As of 2003 what percentage of Canada’s police force was contributing to the UCR 2.0
60%
Define: Dark Figure
The amount of crime that does not get reported
