Chapter 3 Flashcards
What are the five key purposes for data?
- Description: describing criminal phenomena
- Explanation: explaining crime patterns an trends
- Evaluation: determining how the CJS is working
- Risk Assessment: calculating relative risk of being victimized
- Prediction: preventing crime
What three elements are crim stats primarily collected from?
police, judicial, correctional
What is the most frequent source of official crime data?
Police reports
Dark figure of crime
crime that goes undetected, unreported, or unrecorded, and that is thus not included in official sources
What are the two main sources of police stats?
- uniform crime reporting (UCR)
- canadian centre for justice stats (CCJS)
What are the three categories police crime stats are divided in?
- Summary offences: carry a maximum penalty of six months in jail and/or a fine not exceeding $5000
- Indictable offences: carry a max penalty of life imprisonment and no max fine
- Hybrid offences: consist of crimes such as impaired driving and theft under $5000, which the Crown may choose to prosecute as either summary or indictable
Judicial Statistics
-historically, court records were the first type of official crime stats to be collected
-beginning in the early nineteenth century, info was gathered on the number of charges and convictions that appeared before the courts, as well as the offender’s sex, income, education, and occupation
-in recent years, CCJS reports have tended to focus on themes such as hate crime, homicide, young offenders, family violence, and home invasion, rather than provide general summaries of crime across Canada
Correctional Statistics
data on people being held in federal and provincial corrections facilities, including age, sex, offence, and prior conviction
What do Official Data Measure?
-from a social constructionist pov, official stats are collected primarily to meet the collectors’ own needs and thus tend to reflect the collectors’ attitudes regarding what is important
-while crime data offer interesting descriptive info, they do not explain why changes occur
What factors affect fluctuations of official crime counts
media coverage, the dark figure of crime, changes in recording procedures
Media Coverage
media coverage of crime can influence crime counts. Focusing on certain crimes or crises draws public attention and affects the reporting rates
The Dark Figure of Crime
the portion of crime that goes undetected, unreported, or unrecorded may fluctuate over time and even within settings because of changes in variables such as: police enforcement practices, victims’ willingness to to report crime, public attitudes toward the CJS
Changes in Recording Procedures
Reasons for under or over reporting are:
-changes in the number of police force
-changes in police/court admin
-changes in legal definition of crime
-changes in population base
-changes in public reporting patterns
What was the purpose of the CCJS?
set out to reorganize national data collection methods to meet both federal and provincial needs
What are all the limitation of the CCJS?
-no national info on court decisions
-inconsistencies in the way provinces report, as well as count, their crime incidents
-data on crime incidents, arrests, charges, convictions, and dispositions lack depth
-reports provide little insight into crime and criminal behaviour
-no reports on white collar crime, organized crime, victimless crime, etc.
Unofficial Crime Data
crime data not collected by official criminal justice agencies, usually to elucidate existing official data and verify the validity of official sources: victimization data, self-report data, observational methods
Are victimization surveys used to tap into the dark figure of crime?
Yes
What are the limitations of victimization surveys?
-respondents forget about crimes
-respondents forget when crime occurred
-may not feel comfy saying everything
-they might not understand the questions
-different social groups reply differently to questions
-surveys are time consuming and expensive
-You need a high sample to survey which is also expensive
How do self report studies work?
-use surveys where individuals are asked to voluntarily disclose whether they have ever committed an offence
-such unofficial crime data can shed light on undetected and underreported types of crime, like sexual assualt
What are the limitations of self report data?
-respondents may mistrust the interviewers
-they may not answer truthfully because of embarrassment
-those who feel a deep sense of guilt may not disclose their behaviour
-respondents may exaggerate the truth, especially if they’re young
-they may simply have forgotten
Qualitative Research
-research designed to study characteristics that cannot be measured or counted
-pioneered by Weber, who emphasized the importance of understanding how individuals interpret their own actions and the actions/reactions of others
-Weber coined the term “verstehen” - the effort to understand both the intent and the context of human action
Field Observation
the objective is to collect data about a phenomenon in the environment in which it occurs
Participant Observation
involves a researcher taking part in the activity or social group under study
Observation enables data collection on what three levels?
-the activity itself, the activities surrounding them, and their meaning
-the dynamics of the participants and their interrelationships
-the setting in general
