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CRM 202 - Chapter 3 and 4 > CRM 202 - Chapter 3 and 4 > Flashcards

CRM 202 - Chapter 3 and 4 Flashcards

1
Q

Big picture data comes from

A

· Official government statistics
· Criminologists and victimologists
· Special interest groups

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2
Q

Statistical portraits answer questions such as

A
  1. How many people are harmed by criminals each year?
  2. Is victimization increasing or subsiding?
  3. Which groups are targeted most/least?
  4. When and where do crimes occur?
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3
Q

Official statistics are compiled by

A

Government agencies

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4
Q

Statistics are used to

A

a) Estimate victimization rates
b) Expose patterns of criminal activity
c) Detect trends, or changes over time
d) Estimate costs and losses
e) Project rough estimates of next year’s caseload
f) Evaluate effectiveness of policies and prevention strategies
g) Identify statistical profiles of typical victims

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5
Q

Statistics are interpreted based on the spin given to them to

A

Accentuate the positive or negative to:
a) Influence decision makers
b) Shape public opinion

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6
Q

Statistical abuse involves

A

Manipulation of what is being measured

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7
Q

Victimologists should ask themselves

A

a) What is the origin of this data?
b) Are different estimates available from other sources?
c) What kinds of biases could have crept into the analyses?
d) How valid and precise were the measurements?
e) How were the key variables operationalized?

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8
Q

The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) was established in 1927 to

A

a) Create a standard set of definitions and reporting formats for gathering crime statistics.
b) Compile all victims’ complaints and direct observations made by officers across the country.
c) Based on voluntary data provided by law enforcement agencies (by US and Canada) at every level of govt

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9
Q

Eight index crimes

A

· Against persons: murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault
· Against property: burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson
- The crown usually has to prove larceny to prove theft (either under or above $5000)

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10
Q

The UCR is used to compute an overall crime index

A
  • Number of incidents reported
  • Estimated losses due to property crime
  • Proportion of solved cases
  • Characteristics of the suspects arrested
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11
Q

The UCR contains NO information about

A

Complainant’s harm

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12
Q

21 assorted offenses

A

Simple assault, curfew offenses and loitering, embezzlement, forgery and counterfeiting, disorderly conduct, driving under the influence, drug offenses, fraud, gambling, liquor offenses, offenses against the family, prostitution, public drunkenness, runaways, sex offenses, stolen property, vandalism, vagrancy, and weapons offenses

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13
Q

The UCR provides only

A

Arrest numbers (doesn’t talk about the relationship between the victim)

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14
Q

The UCR is good for

A

Crime totals – doesn’t study actual victims/characteristics of persons arrested

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15
Q

Problems with thee UCR

A

· Underreporting results in incomplete data
· Focuses on accused offenders with no complainant information
· Combines attempted (inchoate) and completed crimes (indictable)
· Crime rates include incidents against impersonal entities and individuals
· FBI requires observance of the hierarchy rule in reporting

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16
Q

National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

A
  • Standard format by 2021
  • Abandons the hierarchy rule
  • Provides expanded coverage of illegal activities
  • 46 Group A offenses from 22 crime categories
  • Victim information
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17
Q

NCVS

A
  • Self-report survey of a nationwide sample of households
  • Provides projections based on voluntary disclosures from a big sample population
  • Respondents answer questions from a 20-page survey every 6 months for 3 years
  • Focuses on crimes of violence and simple assault, not murder
  • Inquires about personal larceny, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft
  • Records demographics and perceptions of the victims
  • Used to derive estimates of crimes throughout the United States
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18
Q

Problems with the NCVS

A
  • National sample may not be representative of the U.S. population.
  • Credibility in self-reported information is questionable.
  • Credibility is questionable
    • Underreporting/memory decay
    • Overreporting/forward telescoping
  • It does not include crime against children under 12
  • Interviewers’ experience affects data collected.
  • Huge samples are required, leading to great expense.
  • Seriousness of crime in certain areas is indeterminable.
  • Projected absolute number of incidents and relative rates are estimated at the midpoint of a range (or confidence interval).
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19
Q

Strengths of the UCR:

A
  • Contains homicide information
  • Provides geographically based statistics
  • Based on law enforcement reports, adding authenticity (because it is based on law enforcement reports
20
Q

Strengths of the NCVS:

A
  • Contains victim information
  • Provides data about incidents not reported to police
  • Unaffected by the relationship between police and the community
21
Q

Findings of the UCR and NCVS are not comparable because

A
  • Definitions of crimes (e.g., rape, robbery, burglary) change the numerator
  • Denominators differ (e.g., FBI computes per 100,000 persons, BJS per 1,000 persons (age 12 and over)
22
Q

For 2016, UCR reports nearly

A
  • 1.25 million acts of “violence against persons” (all crimes 640 over 100,000)
  • 9 million property crimes (2450 over 100,000)
23
Q

For 2016, NCVS reports nearly

A
  • 5.7 million acts of “violence against persons” (21 out of 1,000)
  • 16 million property crimes (120 out of 1,000)
24
Q

The Crime Clock

A
  • As time passes, the victim toll keeps mounting
  • Calculated by: Total number of reported incidents of each crime is divided into the number of seconds or minutes in a year
    • Crimes of violence occur once in every 25 seconds
    • Crimes of stealing occur once in every 4 seconds
  • Based on the UCR, so data underestimates crime in the United States
  • Represents the annual ratio of crime to fixed time intervals, not the predictability of crime
  • Can feed into media sensationalism and fear-mongering
25
Q

Victimologists and Criminologists study

A
  • Raw numbers
  • Rates to compare the frequency of crime in populations of unequal size
26
Q

Victimization rates

A

o Must be viewed in context or they imply that being targeted is commonplace
* Crime clock numbers are less impressive when you look at the overall population of the US
o Ignore the fact that most Americans go unscathed each year

27
Q

Property crimes

A

· Are more common than violent crimes
· Tend to occur in the following frequency:
o Larceny, mostly petty
o Burglary
o Motor vehicle theft

28
Q

Violent crimes

A

· Tend to occur in the following frequency:
o Simple assaults (punching, kicking, shoving, slapping, spitting etc.) most common but least serious
o Aggravated assaults (shootings, stabbings)

29
Q

Crime trends in the big picture include

A

· Spikes: Sudden jumps in crime rates
· Crime waves: Sharp increases in rates, continuing over consecutive years
· Crime crashes: Downward crime rates year-after-year

30
Q

Crime trends in the United States revealed by the UCR and NCVS

A

· Major crime wave during the late 1960s
· Violent crime “crash” in the 1990s, drifting downward until 2014
· Uptick in violent crime in 2016

31
Q

Types of Murder

A

Homicide
* Killing of one human being by another
* Not always punishable
First-degree murder
* Killing with express malice, deliberately, or with premeditation
Second-degree murder
* Killing with intent to inflict grievous bodily injury or with a depraved heart
Voluntary (or first-degree) manslaughter
* Killing in the sudden heat of passion (rage) resulting from victim’s provocations
* S. 232 defence of provocation
Involuntary (second-degree) manslaughter
* Loss of life due to gross negligence

32
Q

The Rise and Fall of Murder Rates Since 1900

A

· Homicide rates soared from 1900 until the peak in 1933.
· Violent deaths plummeted after Prohibition, continuing to fall until 1945, the end of World War II.
· Homicide rates briefly surged after World War II, then declined.
· Homicide rates doubled during the 1960s to the mid-1970s.
· Lethal violence reached an all-time high in 1980.
· In the 1990s, murder rates began a decline until the recent uptick in 2015.

33
Q

Comparative risks

A

· Rest on (estimates of) likelihood of experiencing negative life events
· Determine which threats (crimes, accidents, or diseases) merit greater precautionary measures

34
Q

Problems with comparative risks include

A

· Ranking represents a snapshot of a fluid situation
· Cannot indicate underlying trends
· Also looks at differential risk (i.e. low risk and high fear for the elderly and high risk and no fear for youth)

35
Q

Data is used to answer questions

A

· Incident rates: what are the odds of being attacked during any given year.
· Trend analysis: attempts to answer the question, is robbery a growing or subsiding in the US.
· Prevalence: attempt to answer HOW MANY PPL have been robbed
· Cumulative: what are the chances someone is robbed ONCE in their lifetime and during the previous year.
· Differential: attempt to answer the question does violent crime burden ALL communities equally/randomly or are some more likely to be targeted than others.

36
Q

Identifying Differential risks: which groups suffer more often than others?

A

· 1. Chance of victimization is more likely than for others
o Some people are victimized more than others (females, more than males are raped, taxi drivers, more than ppl that work from home are robbed).
· 2. Victimization rates should be deconstructed into component pieces to reveal differential risks by particular group
o This is how patterns begin to appear.

37
Q

Where is it much safer or far more dangerous: making international comparisons

A

Police use different definitions for robbery, burglary, and rape (sexual assault)

38
Q

Murder rates on various societies around the world

A

· Definition of murder has to be clear
· Internationally…
· About 440, 000 ppl die each year
o About 6 murders for every 100,000
· Better to compare murder rates in similar countries

39
Q

Who Faces the Greatest Risk of Being Murdered?

A
  • In 2016, murder rate was 5.3 per 100,000
  • In 2020, murder rate was 6.52 per 100,000 (Canada is 2.06 per 100,000 in 2021 and the US is 6.90 per 100,00 in 2021)
  • Demographic factors (Besides geography) the vast majority were males between 16 to 40 and similar race meaning inter-racial
  • Lower socio-economic standard for offender and victim
40
Q

Near-Death Experiences: Trends in Aggravated Assault Rates

A
  • There is a fine line between aggravated assault and attempted murder
  • Both the UCR and NCVS keep records
  • The NCBS show a peak in aggravated assault in ‘93 and a sharp decline in ‘03
  • The UCR showed an uptick in 2015
  • Data regarding mass shooting is called Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act but it’s mainly collected by the FBI in the US
41
Q

Robberies: Who, How Often, How, Where, and When

A
  • Majority of robbers are opportunistic and very few are predatory
  • Most victims never get their property back
  • If murder is committed alongside robbery, or sexual assualt or kidnapping or killing a police officer or C.O then the murder is automatically considered first degree
42
Q

Which Groups Get Robbed the Most and the Least Often?

A
  • Lower robbery risk in 2016 than in 1996
  • Higher robbery risk faced by
    - Men who are
    - Young (21-34),
    - Single,
    - Poor,
    - Of a minority group and
    - Urban dwelling
43
Q

Trends in Burglaries, United States, 1973-2016

A
  • The UCR shows that the burglary rate peaked in 1980 and it’s been continually dropping since then
  • The NCVS shows that the burglary rate peaked in 1975 but then dropped steadily till ‘02
44
Q

Whose Homes Are More Likely to Be Burglarized?

A
  • At highest risk are low-income, black families with many members, living in URBAN areas
  • The Broken Windows Theory: In criminology, the broken windows theory states that any visible signs of crime and civil disorder, such as broken windows (hence, the name of the theory) vandalism, loitering, public drinking, jaywalking, and transportation fare evasion, create an urban environment that promotes even more crime and disorder (Wilson & Kelling, 1982).
  • Burglars show preference for
    - Single-family homes
    - Detached homes
    - Weekdays when people are at work
    - Homes near the highway or
    - Homes near the offender
45
Q

Stealing Cars for Fun and Profit

A
  • The NCVS and the UCR indicates that car theft rose during the late ‘80’s and reached an all-time high during the early ‘90’s and then had a dramatic decrease and then started creeping back up in 2015
  • One of the biggest reasons for stealing high-end cars is to make money from the chop-shops
  • Motor vehicle theft refers to the attempt to drive off with another person’s car
  • Larceny is stealing things from the car or parts off of the car
  • NCVS show every 1,000 and UCR show 240 per 100,000
46
Q

Which Motorists Should Be Most Concerned When Parking?

A
  • Chances of losing a car depend on
    - The number of thieves of chop-shops in a given area
    - The effectiveness of the police in a given area
    - The effectiveness of anti-theft devices
    - The immediate microenvironment (traffic, lighting, pedestrians)
    - The driver demographics
  • Half of all vehicles are made domestically
  • Most vehicles that are stolen are older models without smart keys

CRM 202 - Chapter 3 and 4 (1 decks)

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