Week 2: Counting Crime Flashcards
Who collects official crime statistics
Law Enforcement Agencies
Limitations of Crime Statistics (5)
1) Only captures a fraction of the so-called dark figure of crime; crime that remains unreported, unrecorded, and largely unknown
2) Are generally offense - rather than offender or victim-focused
3) Only covers a limited range of crimes
4) Issues in the counting of offenders vs offenses
5) Changing classifications of certain crimes
What must happen before a criminal event is recorded?
A criminal event occurs
The person must recognize an event as a crime
The person must report the event to the police
If the police are called, they need to decide if they will respond
If the police respond, they have to decide to write a report
What is the Crime Funnel?
A model indicating that the actual total quantity of crime is much higher than the decreasing proportion that is detected, reported, prosecuted, and punished
What is Crime Mapping
Using official statistics to generate maps that visually represent the spatial distribution of crime
Problems with Crime Mapping
1) Only street crimes that are reported to the police are represented
2) Impact on the privacy of victims
3) Spatial labeling
What is Spatial Labeling
When an area is labeled as ‘high crime’ a certain stigma gets attached to the area
Predictive Policing Maps
Runs data through an algorithm to forecast crime
Identifies hotspots that have a high probability of a crime occurring in a given time frame
Information is the distribution of police resources
The goal is to stop a crime before it happens or while it is in progress
What is a Victimisation Survey?
Interview a sample of a population and ask them questions about their experiences of criminal optimization
How often does StatsCan conduct a Victimization Survey
every 5 years
Strengths of Victimization Surveys (4)
1) Largely overcomes the non-reporting and non-recording problems associated with official statistics
2) Helps estimate the size of the gap between reported and unreported crime
—Generally captures 3-5 more crimes than captured by official means
3) Directs attention to the experiences of victims
4) Less subject to political and policy biases
Limitations of Victimization Surveys (5)
1) Not all types of crime are captured
2) Not all types of people are captured
3) Some crimes don’t have victims
4) Fallibility of Memory (memory decay, telescoping)
5) Reluctance to answer honestly
What is a Self-Report Survey
Interviewing a sample of a population and asking them a series of questions about their involvement in committing criminal or delinquent acts
Self Report Surveys: Typical Format…
How many times in the last year have you_____
Strengths of Self-Report Surveys (4)
1) Avoids problems of non-reporting and non-recording associated with official statistics
2) Provides insight into offenders’ motivations for committing crimes and techniques they use
3) Reveals levels of involvement in crime according to sex, age, race
4) Useful for exploring changes in patterns of offending over the life course
Limitations of Self-Report Surveys (3)
1) Sampling Problems (difficult to get hard-core criminals in the sample)
2) Types of crimes included (focus on low-level crime)
3) Honesty of answers (some may lie for varying reasons)
2 Main Methods of Measuring Crime
1) Routine collecting of data by LEAs
2) Surveying people
What are Uniform Crime Reports
Departments provide information on a limited number of crimes which are collected by the FBI
What are the two parts of Uniform Crime Reports
1) Coves index offenses, generally use as the basis for assessing annual crime rates (Criminal homicide, Forcible rape, Robbery, Aggravated Assault, etc)
2) includes matters such as other forms of violence (assault and theft, sex offenses, drunkenness, fraud)
Limitations of the Uniform Crime Report (3)
1) only covers a limited range of crimes
2) the list of what it covers is mainly focused on street crims or conventional forms of crim (little focus on white collar crime)
3) not compulsory, doesn’t cover the whole country
Impact of Legislation on Crime
1) Creates new offenses
2) If new offenses are created, additional statistics are as well
3) New legislation could also make something that was one a crime legal
Impact of Legislation on Crime
1) Creates new offenses
2) If new offenses are created, additional statistics are as well
3) New legislation could also make something that was one a crime legal
What is Attrition
the action or process of gradually reducing the strength or effectiveness of someone or something through sustained attack or pressure
When does crime typically rise?
times of conflict, the war, the depression
What is the Offenders Index?
a database that contains the official criminal histories of people who have been convicted in a criminal court of in what are called standard-list offenses
