Criminology Week 8: Measuring Crime

Characteristics of Conventional (Street) Crime: 

• Offenders (common person-anyone)

• Location: residence (most common), open street, commercial; school

• Responsibility (individual level)

• 2 main categories (violence & property)

• How dealt with: CJS mostly deals with conventional crime [high enforcement]

Characteristics of White-Collar Crime/Corporate Crime: 

• Offenders (social class - MC/UC)

• Location: (marketplace occupation)

• 2 main categories (white-collar & corporate/organization)

• How dealt with: CJS rarely deals with (low enforcement) - internally &/or civil court

Crime Data (Sources of Crime Statistics)/Measuring Crime:

1. Official Statistics

• By Law (1961-62)

• CJS: Police (Jan to Dec), Courts & Corrections (Apr to Mar)

• Statistics Canada

• UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting) - Police

• USA (FBI)

UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting) - Police

• Police aware of crime:

• A) Proactively: on their own (patrol, undercover) [~20%]

• B) Reactively: responding to public calls [~80%]

• Most crimes detected this way (response to public)

UCR - 2

• Adopted (1982) by StatsCan

• Added

• Arson & mischief (to property crimes)

• New crimes (criminal harassment, making threatening/harassing phone calls)

• Data collected (new): multiple offences from the same event (vs only most serious before);

• Information about victims & accused; -age, sex, drug/alcohol; circumstances of incident

Self-Report Surveys: 

• Official data: removed from source

• Sociology: examine systemic bias in data

• Origins: schools (1950s, with boys)

• Tend to be accurate

Victimization Surveys: 

• Origins 1960s (USA, Canada 1981)

• Canada: 

• GSS (General Social Survey)

• CUVS (Canadian Urban Victimization Survey)

• VAWS (Violence Against Women Survey)

• Questions:

• Personal victimization, for all members of household

• Very worst crime

• Criminal justice response

• Attitudes toward CJS

Modes of Observations: 

Experimental, Quantitative, Qualitative

Content Analysis:

• Media & Communication studies

• Compare: same medium, across media, media vs statistics

1. Quantitative

• Manifest content: on surface, can be counted

• Occurrences - crime, gender, victims, police quotes, etc. 

• Crime (premium of news)

2. Qualitative 

• Latent content: unintended or ideological

• Context, language, meaning & ideology [social constructionism; framing analysis - Goffman]

UCR: Reliability of Crime Statistics: 

• The “reliable” statistic

• Some crime stats have more “reliability”

• Question 1: What do you think this means?

• Question 2: What crime is the most reliable statistic?

Crimes Reported to Police (Reliability)

• Violent Offences

• Homicide (highest, all)

• Attempted murder

• Assault

• Abduction

• Sexual offences (L3)

• Robbery [strangers]

• Property Offences

• Breaking and Entering

• Theft Motor Vehicles

• Theft over $200 and under

• Have stolen goods

• Frauds

Correlates (Social Dimensions) of Crime: 

Correlate: association between variables (vary together); correlation does not equal causation.

Correlates of crime: variables associated with crime.

Sociological: (most common): Age, sex, race/ethnicity, social class, neighbourhood.