week 5 - measuring crime Flashcards
measures of crime
- official report
- victimization report
- self-report surveys
crime rate
standardized count of crime for a given location during a specific time
- used to compare across regions and time periods with proper scaling
official report
- based on the administrative records of police, court, and corrections
- canada first began collecting stats in 1921 (though highly inconsistent)
- two official records reported by the canadian centre for justice statistics (ccjs)
-> uniform crime report (ucr),, crime severity index (csi)
uniform crime report aggregate (1.0)
- developed 1962 to provide accurate and standardized measures to facilitate temporal and spatial comparisons
- collects summary data for a number of different offences
limitations:
- very little offender/victim information
- concern that the counting rules deflate total crime and inflate serious crime as proportion of total
-> violent: count the # of victims
-> property: count the number of events
-> mixed: count the most serious offence only
uniform crime report incident based (2.0)
- implemented in the 1980s
- collects detailed info on each incident, offender, and victim
- allows for the collection of data on up to 4 offences per incident (overcomes the counting rule limitation)
crime severity index (CSI)
most crimes are less serious-> ucr dominated by less serious crime
- csi captures both volume and severity of crime
determining severity
- based on the sentences given by the criminal courts
- the more serious the average sentence, the greater weight given to a particular crime
Limitation of official reports
dark figure of crime
- undetected/unreported crimes to the police
victimization report
- asking people about crimes they have been victims of
- complements official data by identifying crimes that were not “caught” officially
- most common type is the General Social Survey (GSS)
-> implemented every 5 yrs by stats canada
-> allows the government to monitor general changes (living conditions, income) in population across time
-> subsection on victimization
General Social Surveys
surveys a random sample of the population where respondents are asked whether they have been a victim of crime in the past 12 months
- if yes, when and where, reported or not, and how it affected them
limitations on victimization report
- sampling (must be 15+ with a phone)
- doesn’t capture victimless crimes or homicides
- memory fade (false negative)
- telescoping (false positive)
self report surveys
asks participants (survey/interview) whether they have committed a crime in a particular period of time
- complements official data by capturing crimes that were not reported to police
self report surveys are usually used in research on the causes of crime
- ask about their criminal behaviour, demographic characteristics, life experiences
limitations to self report surveys
deception
- survey participant may lie about their criminal activities (less likely to report serious crimes)
