L4: Crime Rates, Trends and Perceptions Flashcards
When is the Crime Statistics released?
- annually
- in the summer
What issues are investigated using the yearly Crime Statistics?
- how much crime is occurring
- is crime increasing or decreasing
- what is the rate of violent crime
- Which cites have the highest/lowest amount of crime
What area of crime has the most crimes committed?
Property crime.
What is the CSI?
Crime Severity Index
What does it do? How does it function?
- it measures the severity of crime
- does this by creating a weighing system for crimes
- more severe crimes weigh more
- less severe crimes weigh less
What is the PRCR?
Police Reported Crime Rate
What does the CSI measure?
- measures crime severity
-weighs the crimes based off sentence given
What does the PRCR measure?
-measures volume
-equal weighting
What are some factors that affects PRCR?
- Demographics
- Social and Economic Factors
- Shifts in inflation
Financially motivated crimes include ….
- break and entering
- robbery
- motor vehicle theft
What is the UCR?
Uniform Crime Reporting System
What were the functions of the UCR?
- main idea is its “what the police say”
- provided standard definitions of all crime
- created a guidebook = UCR manual
Who and How often would the UCR be reported?
- reported on a monthly basis
- reported by Police Depts to Statistics Canada
What is the main difference between the UCR and UCR2?
- UCR2 was made to collect incident based data
- allowed for better analysis of crime trends
What did the UCR2 include that the UCR didn’t?
- age, sex, race
- type of weapon used
- date time location of the crime etc
What were some concerns regarding police generated crime statisitics?
-only crime known to the police is recorded
-only the most serious crimes were reported
- crime total mis represents crime rates
-issues with the recording of crimes
What was the purpose of the GSS?
-to better understand how Canadians perceive crime
- how they saw the justice system and to capture information on their experiences of victimization
What is the GSS?
The General Social Survey
GSS was not intended to replace the UCR but rather …..
complement it.
What is classified as a violent crime?
“crimes against the person”
What is the most frequent type of violent crime?
-assault
What is the most common property crime?
-theft under $5000
Whats the main issue when using the UCR as the only basis for crime ?
- not all victims report crimes to the police
What questions are awnser with the use of victimization surveys? 4 things
- help estimate unrecorded crime
- helps explain why victims don’t report crimes to the police
- provide information on the impact of crimes on victims
- helps to identify population at risk
What are Self Report surveys? What do they measure?
- ask directly about criminal involvement
- measures attitude towards crime
- focuses on the youth and drugs
- social varibles and crime
Who were the Bow Street Runners?
- a group of professional law enforcement agents
- first form of modern policing
What are the 3 levels of policing?
-municipal
-provincial
-federal
What were the duties of the Bow Street Runners ?
- catch criminals
- recover stolen property
What does the RCMP do?
- enforces federal statues
- carries out executive orders
What happened in the 1970’s regarding Diversity?
- pressure was placed on police organizations
What is the FNPP?
First Nations Policing Policy
What two options are presented to FN communities under the FNPP?
- having a self- administered police service
2.Agreement with exsisting police force
What is Plural Policing?
-policing that expands past public police
General Cynicism vs Systemic Cynicism
General - broad distrust of people and institutions
Systemic - Distrust specifically focused on established systems and their functions.
