Counting Youth Crime Flashcards
List the strengths of using police statistics.
- Consistent definition and measurement of crime: able to look at changes in time in a reliable way
- Can track crime trends overtime: able to compare crimes across time and jurisdiction (able to know where crime is higher)
- Can compare crime across different jurisdictions: geographically and time
- Collected systematically to the police: report what needs to be reported
List the weaknesses of police statistics.
- Only includes crime that comes to the attention of the police
○ Not all crime is reported to the police - Difficult to know the percent that is not reported: unsure how it affects the overall crime rate
○ ie. Fear of being injured, previous
experience with the police. - Depends on the crime that is highly reported
○ ie. car theft high, sexual assault low
According to recent police statistics, there have been a ____ in adult & youth crime
drop
What is the crime severity index?
- relies on sentencing data
- The more serious crimes receive a higher weight ie. Life sentences
- Mostly used in adult since most youth do not commit serious crimes
- Re-evaluated every 5 years
List 2 ways of measuring youth crime
- Actual # of crimes (phone calls)
○ Rate for 100,00 population (violent crime rate): measuring crime because population is always changing. - Youth crime severity index
○ Youth crimes are dropping
○ Non serious crime is dropping quickly compared to less serious crime
Criminal code incidents
Why is youth crime declining since 1980?
- Technology (security cameras): rational choice theory
- Less alcohol and drug use amongst teens today
- Adult crime decreased in Canada and USA
- Demographic effect: chosen population: if decreased over time or increased it will effect the demographic effect.
○ Ie. Baby boomers (higher number of crime within
that category due to increased population)
Which groups are over-represented in crime statistics?
Males are more likely to be attending court compared to females
* The older they are; the more likely youth end up in court
*Female= 20% court cases
*Males= 70-80% court cases (crime peaks at 17-18)
* Indigenous youth admissions to correctional services, by province and territory
* Make up 7% of youth population in Canada and 33% of youth in custody
T/F: surveys and ethnographies are official sources of data
False: unofficial
Describe the school-based surveys used in the early 1960s.
- done in class setting
○ Issue w/ using only this population - only looking at a conformist group of youth; not high-risk/deviant youth as they often didn’t attend school
○ Computing started to take off in social science - able to analyze large groups of data
○ Asked students about minor things - drinking, smoking, etc.
○ Schools were easy to access
○ Less common today
What are key problems associated w/ surveys?
- Deception - surveys are anonymous; participants not being monitored; may lie in fear of being incriminated
- Fatigue/not seriously taken - response not genuine
- Some feel they are tests - participants feel as though their answers will be looked at; fear of being right or wrong
- Unable to focus on context - surveys don’t provide in-depth info; why participant engages in certain activities
How do victimization surveys work?
- Questions about past victimization
- Can be used to better understand unreported crime
- Also research orientated
- Need to ask very specific questions - E.g. “in the past year, have you been a victim of assault with a weapon?”
- Criminologists use surveys to test theories
Describe ethnographic research.
- Roots in Anthropology
- Smaller sample sizes
- Participant Observation
- Difficult to do with youth
- Strong in terms of Validity
- Unable to make broader generalizations
Differentiate between official & unofficial sources of crime.
Official - police, courts, & corrections stats
- records of youth whose illegal activities have come to the attention of whether reported or discovered by various social control agencies
Unofficial - self reports & victimization
- usually published by private or independent researchers or research facilities
List the crime difference between males & females
Males - tend to commit more reported crime; convicted for sexual assault, robbery, drug possession
Females- convicted for prostitution, common assault, fraud
What type of crime is commonly reported by the media?
focuses on hot-button, social panic issues (e.g. child abuse, abduction, disease, & homicide)
