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SOC225- Criminology > Chapter 4: Counting Crime > Flashcards

Chapter 4: Counting Crime Flashcards

1
Q

Methodology

A

Refers to the study or critique of methods

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2
Q

Reliability

A

Consistency of results over time

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3
Q

Validity

A

What you’re intending to measure is what you’re actually measuring. (Accuracy, truthfulness)

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4
Q

How do criminologist calculate crime rates?

A

dividing the amount of crime by the pop. size and multiplying by 100,000

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5
Q

What does UCR stand for?

A

Uniform Crime Report

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6
Q

What is a spurious correlation?

A

Correlation that doesn’t exist in time or space.
Ex. most rape occurs in the summer months, ice cream is eaten the most in summer months therefore, ice cream causes rape.

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7
Q

Population

A 
Refers to all member of a given class or set.
Ex. adult Canadians, teenagers, Canadian inmates and criminal offenders.
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8
Q

Kaplan’s “Law of Hammer”

A

When you give a small child a hammer, he or she discovers that everything needs pounding.

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9
Q

Crime rates have been ________ steadily since 1990.

A

Decreasing

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10
Q

The dark figure of crime.

A

All crime that goes unreported or unknown to police

Ex. Sexual Assault

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11
Q

Why do some crimes go unreported or unrecorded? (2 reasons)

A
  1. We don’t think the police will do anything about it (why bother).
  2. The police are busy enough with bigger crimes.
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12
Q

The criminal justice system works as a funnel, how?

A

only a portion of incidence make it to each level. (“crime”, “reported”, “convicted”)

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13
Q

There are built in ______ because some crimes are more likely than others to be reported to result in arrest, charge, conviction, and incarceration.

A

Biases

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14
Q

What is the seriousness Rule?

A

If there are several crimes committed in one incident, only the most serious crime is counted

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15
Q

What are 3 issues with the seriousness rule?

A
  1. How does one determine what is most serious?
  2. Deflates the total crime count.
  3. Inflates serious crime as a proportion of the total.
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16
Q

Reclassification (policing problem)

A

If police do not classify the information correctly then statistics Canada will not get the right information.

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17
Q

Unit of count

A

Consensus about what it is we are counting.

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18
Q

Theories

A

A set of concepts and their nominal definitions or assertions about the relationships between these concepts, assumptions, and knowledge claims

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19
Q

Ideology

A

a linked set of ideas and beliefs that act to uphold and justify an existing or desired situation in society

20
Q

He argued that our understanding of crime would never be significantly advanced if we relied on statistical data

A

Ned Polsky (1967)

21
Q

Ned Polsky was concerned about what?

A

Concerned that sociologists and criminologists were relying too heavily on remote sources of information.

22
Q

3 broad types of criminal justice statistics

A
  1. Stats about crime and criminals.
  2. Stats about the criminal justice system and its response to crime.
  3. stats about perceptions of crime and criminal justice.
23
Q

Administrative Record

A

A collection of information about individual cases.

24
Q

Are administrative records statistics?

A

No

25
Q

What are statistics meant to do?

A

Provide information about larger questions (planning & evaluation, policy & program development, and theory building & testing.

26
Q

5 things need to be addressed before records can be converted into statistics.

A
  1. Unit of Count
  2. Level of Aggregation
  3. Definitions
  4. Data elements
  5. Counting procedure.
27
Q

Level of Aggregation

A

Refers to how data are to be combined. (ex. city-level, provincial, national)

28
Q

Data Elements

A

Specification about what exactly is to be collected

29
Q

Counting Procedure

A

A consensus on how to count units and data elements

30
Q

What are some things that police may count?

A

Suspects, offences, charges, or calls for service.

31
Q

Depending on how the terms are _____ you can inflate of deflate the statistics.

A

defined

32
Q

What is the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS)?

A

A division of statistics Canada, formed in 1981, with a mandate to collect national data on crime and justice

33
Q

_______ statistics are the most accurate because we can count the number of prisoners in Canada and provide some info on their social characteristics

A

Correctional

34
Q

What is the UCR

A

Reports based on standardized set of procedures for collecting and reporting crime info.

35
Q

There are 2 kinds of UCR, what are their purposes?

A

UCR1- Collects very little info about victims and offenders

UCR2- Collects info about the victim, offender, and incident.

36
Q

Gross Counts of Crime

A

A count of the total amount of crime in a given community, making no distinction between crime categories

37
Q

Police stats are shaped by 3 things.

A
  1. public perception
  2. concerns
  3. fears
38
Q

Crime Severity Index (CSI)

A

Measures both the volume an seriousness of police-reported crime in Canada.

39
Q

______ has created huge new opportunities for people to commit crimes.

A

The Internet

40
Q

TRUE OR FALSE: Online crime is easy to detect

A

FALSE

41
Q

Victimization Surveys

A

A random sample of the pop in which people are asked to recall and describe their own experience of being a victim of crime

42
Q

What is a sample?

A

A group of elements selected in a systematic manner from the pop. of interest.

43
Q

Why can’t victimization surveys measure all crime?

A

Because it is dependent on human memory and truth telling.

44
Q

Self-Report studies

A

A questionnaire to a sample of people, asking whether they have committed a crime in a particular period in time.

45
Q

Which one of the methods struggle to give us an answer on certain topics in relations to sex, ethnicity, etc. ?

A

Victimization

46
Q

Victimization questions are usually….. and not ….

A

“What have you been a victim of” and NOT “Who victimized you”

SOC225- Criminology (10 decks)

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