Crime Rates, Trends and Perceptions lec 4 Flashcards
what issues do national crime statistics analyze?
-How much crime is occurring?
-crime increasing or decreasing?
-rate of violent crime?
-Which cities have the highest and lowest
rates of crime?
when are national crime statistics released?
annually in summer
how many Criminal Code incidents reported to police in 2017?
over 1.95 million
what TYPE of crime occurred the most according to police reported crime stats?
Property Crime - 61%
what is the CSI? when was in introduced and why?
crime severity index
2008
requested by police
what does the CSI measure? how does it measure?
seriousness of crime
Each offense given a weight, derived from sentences
what did the CSI see in 2017?
increase of 2%
what does Police Reported Crime Rate measure? what is crime rate mostly made up of?
measure volumes – equal weighting
Crime rate: high volume, less serious
offenses
what is the difference between the PRCR and CSI?
PRCR-measure volumes
CSI-measures seriousness of crime
what are some factors affecting Police Reported Crime Rates
Age structure of population
-15-24: high risk
-Over 50: low risk
Social and Economic Factors
how are shifts in inflation and crime related?
Shifts in inflation – associated with shifts in financially motivated crime
what is the UCR? when did it start? how can it be understood?
Uniform Crime Reporting System
1961
“what police say”
how does UCR classify crimes?
-Standard definitions of all offenses
-Classification of crimes through guidebook:
Uniform Crime Reporting Manual
1961-1988 how did statistics Canada get their info?
Police Depts. forwarded info to Statistics Canada
-monthly basis
Who has been responsible for collecting and reporting canadian crime statistics since 1982? How are they published?
-Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
-Release crime statistics Bulletin: Juristat
for the first 27 yrs, and still used; what did UCR report on the basis of?
aggregated statistics
Number of:
-reported offenses
-actual offenses
-offenses cleared by charge
-adults/youth charged
what is NOT included in aggregated stats?
victim characteristics
What new system was introduced to UCR in 1988 ?
Incident Based UCR Survey: also known as UCR2
What was the key change in UCR2?
!-collected incident based data
-crime trends
-Info on victims
-Info on incident circumstances
what are 4 Criticisms of Police Generated Crime Statistics?
- Only crime known to police
- Only most serious crime reported (with exception of stalking) in series
- Crime total misrepresents crime rate
- Issues with recording of incidents (non- violent vs. violent offenses)
What is the number of crimes not reported to the police called? How can this be alleviated?
the dark figure
Alleviate? Victimization surveys
What is victimization data?
Asking about crimes not reported
what are 4 benefits of the victimization survey?
- Estimate unrecorded crime
- Explain why victims do not report crime
- Information on impact of crime
- Identify populations at risk
what are 2 Limitations regarding Victimization Surveys
- Underreporting to interviewers
-Forgotten, seen as insignificant - Response Bias
-Underreporting is distributed unevenly
when were victimization surveys originally used in canada?
late 1970’s/early 1980’s