Criminology and Measuring Crime Lecture Flashcards

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering crime measurement methods, survey types, observational research, and historical theories of criminology from lecture notes.

Crime Funnel

A concept showing the reduction of criminal cases from total reported incidents ($2,052,191$ in $2014$) down to court guilty findings ($229,328$), provincial/territorial custody sentenced admissions ($64,604$), and federal warrant of committal admissions ($4,791$).

Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey

An official police-reported data collection system established in $1962$ that gathers information directly from police services on offences, clearance status, and charged individuals.

Dark Figure of Crime

Unreported or unrecorded criminal activity that is not captured by official police statistics (UCR), but can be uncovered through victimization and self-report surveys.

Victimization Surveys

Surveys in which a sample of the Canadian public is asked if they have experienced personal crimes in the past $12$ months, useful for identifying high-risk groups and unreported crime.

Self-Report Surveys

Studies in which large groups of individuals (most commonly secondary or university students, prisoners, and drug addicts) voluntarily disclose their prior criminal offences.

Porterfield (1943)

The author and publication year of the earliest recorded self-report study examining criminal behavior.

Observational Accounts / Participant Observation

A qualitative research method where researchers interact face-to-face in natural settings with lawbreakers, law enforcement, or marginalized groups (e.g., squeegee kids, outlaw bikers) to gather rich, valid descriptive data.

Biological and Psychological Theories of Crime

Theories that attempt to identify inherent differences between criminals and non-criminals to predict, control, and intervene in behavior, while taking official definitions of crime for granted.

Classical Theory (Cesare Beccaria)

An $18\text{th}$-century school of criminology rooted in the Enlightenment asserting that individuals have free will, choose to commit crime, and can be deterred by swift, certain, and severe punishment.

Social Contract (Classical Criminology)

A voluntary agreement wherein citizens surrender some freedom to the state for protection and a safer society, agreeing to obey rules or face punishment while the state respects citizen rights.

Contributions of the Classical School

Legal reforms that formed the foundation of the modern criminal justice system, including equality before the law, guaranteed rights, fixed penalties, due process safeguards, and separation of judicial and legislative systems.

Neo-Classical School of Criminology

A criminological perspective that introduced flexibility into sentencing to account for individual offender characteristics, mitigating circumstances, and motives.

Positivist School of Criminology

A $19\text{th}$-century approach applying the scientific method to human behavior, maintaining that criminal behavior is determined by forces beyond individual control rather than pure free will.

Atavists

Cesare Lombroso's term for criminals, characterizing them as physical biological throwbacks distinct from non-criminals.

Stigmata

The physical or anatomical signs used in Cesare Lombroso's theory to identify atavism in individuals.