Lesson 3

Question 1

Official sources of information on crime

Answer 1

Uniform crime report (ucr): Looks at incidence (police reports from a certain time) and divides that by the population * 100,000 to give it a crime rate. The problem with this is that it doesn’t take into consideration the amount of unreported crime there is (dark figure of crime) and also only reports the most serious crime in a police report that mentions multiple crimes (seriousness rule)

Crime severity index: Gives weights to certain crimes based on severity.

Question 2

Victimization Surveys

Answer 2

suffers from response bias; is the act of a people self reporting any crimes that have been done on them. Canada has one called the General social survey done every 5 years.

Question 3

Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime and other victim rights

Answer 3

OFOVC: independent resource established in 2007 for crime victims. It offers:

system based services: services that assist the victim throughout the process (ie counselling, court preparation, etc)

police based services

court based services: court orientation, preparation, case progress updates, coordinating meetings with the crown

community based services ie emotional support and referrals

right to information, right to restitution, right to participation, right to protection.