Mapping Crime Flashcards
Definition
Incidence of Crime.
Frequency in which people commit crime or average number of offences per offender
Example: how many times has the bank robbers commit this offence
Definition
Prevalence of Crime.
Number of people participating in crime at a given time
Example: bank gets robbed, how many suspects?
Definition
Crime Rate.
How often is this calculated?
What is the denominator? Does it change?
Number of offences that occur per population.
Denominator always 100,000 and calculated per year
Crime Rate Critiques
What about unreported crimes? “Dark figure”
- not uncommon for a criminal offence to take place at the same time and place
- to avoid over-counting, crime rates are calculated based on most serious offence in an incident
- in the past only the most serious crimes were reported by the police
Crime Recording (2 definitions- Official Statistics, Unofficial Statistics)
Official Statistics:
-recorded stats done by police, courts, provincial an federal correctional agencies
Unofficial Statistics:
-estimates of criminal activity based on self-reported and victimization surveys
What are the Sources of Crime Information?
- Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
- Self-Report Surveys (SRS)
- Victimization Surveys (VS)
What are UCR’s?
- data reported to police
- complaints, crimes, clearances
- characteristics of criminals, crimes, CJ personnel
- not White Crimes (WR)
- UCR
- standard format for all Canadian police departments
- Crime Rates
- crimes per 100,000 population
Critiques for UCR
- not all incidents are reported (stigma, shame, retaliation)
- separate incidents may occur in 1 incident but only the most serious is recorded
- proactive policing, zero tolerance policing, affirmative arrest policing - affects the number of incidents being recorded and the increasing or decreasing of crime rates.
What is proactive policing?
Finding the problem before it happens again
Self-Reporting Surveys (SRS) who does them and what is it for?
- surveys the public on their own criminal activities
- surveys focus on minor offences and school-goers
Self-Reporting Surveys - what are the good for? does ‘dark figure’ occur?
- good for examining bias in policing data collection
- useful in demystifying the assumption that crime is lower-class phenomenon
- ‘dark figure’ of crime appears - discovered that many crimes are non-reported or recorded
Critiques for SRS
- People living in lower-class and men of colour are less likely to self-report crime. Why?
- lower-class may think nothing will be done
- men of colour may think it will go against them - People may exaggerate involvement in crime. Why?
- street credits
- want to prove themselves
Victimization Surveys
Survey public re. Victimization
General Social Survey
-General Social Survey
-crimes, victims, offenders and police reporting
-more crime than UCR
-reasons for non-reporting?
-homeless
-abuse (elder abuse not taken into consideration, don’t have a
voice
-prisoner (victimization surveys don’t go here. Most prisoners are
at risk for hep-c-people share needles, fear of retaliation )
-unaware (credit card theft - fraud, assaulted children,
women - date rape drug)
Age and Crime
12-17 years
12-17 yrs. charged more
-rates declining since 1992
-more youth committing property crimes(involves taking property but
does not involve force or threat against victim)
-older people participating in violent crimes (offender uses or
threatens force against victim)
Age and Crime
“Aging Phenomenon”
-most crime types decrease with age 20 yr old more likely to rob a bank than a 60+yr old
