chapter 3 Flashcards
concept
A general or abstract term that refers to a class or group of more specific terms (e.g., “crime” refers to any number of specific behaviours).
All concepts must be defined before they can be measured with any accuracy or reliability. Youth crime, as a concept, has been defined and measured in different ways over the past 150 years.
under the JDA, youth misbehaviour was defined, measured, and recorded as what?
We saw in Chapter 2 that, under the Juvenile Delinquents Act, youth misbehav- iour was defined, measured, and recorded as delinquency.
Hence, statistics predating the Young Offenders Act include behaviours other than criminal acts as defined by the Criminal Code of Canada—delinquents were often children or youth who were deemed to be unmanageable by their parents and a Family Court judge.
(measuring youth crime)
Measuring youth crime, or delinquency, is not an easy task, because what gets counted depends on the source of the information.
what is the most common source of information on youth crime?
The most common source of information on youth crime for many people is the media.
The other major source, less acces- sible to the average person, is statistics provided by social-control agencies.
what is social-control agencies
Usually government agencies mandated to perform various functions in the justice system, such as police, courts, and correctional institutions.
These agencies include police, courts, and various correctional institutions. Only some of this information is available to the public through Statistics Canada.
other information on youth crime comes from ?
Other informa- tion on youth crime comes from researchers who, over the years, have developed various techniques for measuring youth and adult crime through population surveys and field research.
field research: A method in which research is conducted outside of a laboratory, in the setting where the behaviour of interest is occurring
what are the two most common types of survey?
The two most common types of surveys are victimization sur- veys, which ask people if they have been victimized, and self-report surveys, which ask about a person’s involvement in criminal and delinquent activities.
Most field research has been done with “street kids,” school children, and other institutionalized populations. Each source is useful, but each has shortcomings as a measure of youth crime.
relationship between criminal activity and criminal statistics (look at table p. 74)
Unless we understand the strengths and weaknesses of each of these sources, youth crime can easily be misunderstood or misrepresented in some very significant ways. Further, and most important, what we think we know about youth crime will depend on which source has been used.
relationship between criminal activity and criminal statistics
Sources of information on crime and delinquency vary considerably as measures of actual criminal activity. Table 3.1 illustrates that surveys and field research are more representative of actual criminal activity than is the information we get from control agencies such as the police, courts, and prisons.
Among agencies, a steadily diminishing amount of criminal activity is measured depending on whether the source is police records, court records, or correctional records. For example, not all crimes known to police result in charges, as charges may be dropped or reduced before going to court, and not all convictions result in probation or prison sentences.
agency statistics
In fact, the statistics that we get from these agencies have not been designed to measure youth crime. Rather, they have been designed by agencies to be used for their own purposes. Courts, for example, need to know how long it takes to process a case for scheduling purposes. Survey and field information on youth crime provides a more valid measure of what we would consider to be the actual amount and character of youth crime, primarily because these measuring tools and techniques have been designed by researchers solely for the purpose of measuring criminal activity.
