CRJ 270 Exam 2

Criminal Statistics

- Gain an accurate measure of the extent and distribution of crime

- Enables police departments to allocate resources to fight crime because these statistics will show the "hot spots" for criminal behavior and the risk factors

- Help police departments judge if crime prevention programs are working

Criminological Theories

- Criminologists need an accurate measure of the nature and extent of crime to evaluate this utility

- Victimization surveys and self-report studies of criminal behavior indicate that lower class people in the US are not necessarily more crime prone than other social classes

- An accurate measure of crime is important for citizens to have a reasonable estimate of their

risks of criminal victimization

Counting Crime and Its Characteristics

1) The use of official crime statistics compiled by police departments

2) Self-report studies of one's criminal behavior

3) Surveys of crime victims

Police Reports on Crime (Uniform Crime Report [UCR])

- FBI data based on police reports of crime that are submitted by police agencies across the country; Voluntary program

- Criminal acts are recorded and counted in a consistent/uniform way across different police departments

- UCR data provides estimates of the prevalence of particular crimes over time, the

demographic characteristics of those arrested for crimes, and crime rates over different geographical units

Part 1 Offenses

include violent crimes (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assaults) and property crimes (burglary, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft, arson)

Part 2 Offenses

include alcohol related offenses (DUI, liquor law violation, public drunkenness) and drug offenses

Crime Rate Over Time

total number of particular crimes and dividing it by the population size

Correlates of Crime

crime rates vary across time and space

Gender Differences

males account for more of arrests than females

Age Differences

peak age for criminal behavior is 18-24

Racial Differences

blacks account for more arrests in violent crime than property crimes

Problems with UCR Data as an Accurate Measure of Crime

- Crimes known to the police are not representative of all crimes

- "Dark Figures of Crime" the gap between the amount of crimes known to the police and the true extent of crime

- National coverage problems (only cover 95% of police jurisdictions)

- Non-uniform reporting of UCR data across jurisdictions

Video 8- Statistical Lies in Official Crime Data

- Acts of omission/commission

- Errors in reporting by public/police

- Errors in data coding/recording

- Acts of deliberate manipulation

- Political factors (ex: elections)

- Economic factors (ex: federal/state funding)

Video 9- NIBRS Data

- National Incident Base Recording System

- 25% of US population, 31 NIBRS certified States

- Records crimes on all times of offenses not just serious ones like UCR

- Includes all types of victims and crimes

- Covers more crimes, topics, more complete data

- More time consuming to collect NIBRS data, more difficult processing

——————————————————————

Self-Reporting of Offending

Due to bias in police reports on crime, criminologists resorted to asking people directly about their involvement in criminal activities

Self Report Approach

- Asking people directly about their involvement in criminal activities based on the fundamental assumption that offenders themselves are the single best source for information about the prevalence of criminal behavior

- Extremely important that self-report respondents feel that they can respond truthfully and

anonymously to questions about their criminal activities

Video 10: Interpreting NCVS Data

- Sample data to represent unknown population estimates of those victimized by crime: Sampling error and sampling biases involved

- Computing victimization rates (number of crimes divided population rates)

- Patterns/measures in household "touched" by crime, primary measure of NCVS: Most touched by property crime

Video 11: Lifetime Victimization Risks

- Computations and assumptions: Figure out probability for lifetime risk measurements of victimization

- Life risks for violent victimization: Males 89% vs. Females 73% - Age 12 (83%) vs. Age 30 (53%) vs. Age 60 (14%)

- Lifetime risks for property victimization: Burglary 72% vs. Motor Vehicle Theft 19%

- This info conveys general idea of risks of being victimized by a particular type of crime

National Crime Victimization Surveys (NCVS) is the primary ...

US victimization survey

NCVS

- Have been conducted since the mid 70s and provide data based on 50,000 to 100,000 samples of household respondents

- The data indicate the proportion of American households that have been "touched" by crime over 30% of the households in the 80s to less than 12% of the households in 2011

"Major Problems with NCVS":

- Particular groups of people who have high risks of victimization are not included in these

surveys (homeless, institutionalized, mobile individuals) - Changes in particular wording of screening questions used to elicit information about one's victimization experiences have affected the overall amount of victimizations are reported in these surveys

- Crimes committed by acquaintances and family members are under reported in victimization surveys

- NCVS data undercounts the prevalence of repeated victimizations that occur on a regular

basis

Video 12: Ranking the Most Dangerous States

***Computation Methods:

-Rank by UCR Violent Crime Rate (total index)

-Composite rank of 6 Index Crimes (equal weight): murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft

***Composite Rank Results:

- 2009: (1) NV (2) LA (3) SC (4) NM (5) FL

- 2007: (1) NC (2) Ark. (3) LA (4) SC (5) TN

- Problems arises such as validity/reliability of UCR data and its consistency over time, are you really measuring dangerousness by this data?

Triangulation

Combining the results of UCR, Self Report, and Victimization Surveys to uncover crime patterns across all three data sources

General Conclusions

-Crime is a commonplace event in contemporary American society

- Crime is committed by all social classes, but the type of criminal behavior varies by social class

- Males engage in crime more than females but this gender gap is narrowing for nonviolent crimes (ex: property crimes, victimless crimes)

- The US crime rate over the last two decades has probably been more stable than is shown by UCR data and claimed by various media outlets

- Young people are the most likely victims and offenders of predatory crimes

- Police apprehend and clear by an arrest only a small proportion of offenders

Video 13: What is theory?

- Definition of Theory: a set of propositions that account for what we observe

- Value of Theory:

*** Explains etiology of criminal behavior (risk factors that lead to criminal behavior)

***Explains epidemiology of crime (why groups of people do crime; male, female, young, old)

***Explains occurrence of criminal acts (what makes situations crime prone)

- Without theory we can't explain patterns of crime, or why criminal acts occur