CRIM 220 Midterm: Chapter 6

Crime elements

offender, victim, offence, incident

Crime elements: offender

without an offender, there is no crime

Crime elements: offence

the individual act

Crime elements: incident

one or more offences committed by the same offender(s) in the same place

Three purposes of measuring crime

monitoring, agency accountability, research

Monitoring: surveillance system

a routine collection of data to monitor some phenomenon

Agency accountability

government has to keep records that document their actions & areas of responsibilities

Summary based system

crime measures that report the total crime counts for a jurisdiction or other area

• issues = crimes aren’t reported & a hierarchy

Incident based system

crime measures that express characteristics of individual incidents

IBS: Group A reports

collects information about the incident & arrests

• covers 28 offences & 71 offence types

• e.g. homicide, animal cruelty, abduction, arson, etc.

IBS: Group B reports

collects information only about arrests

• covers 10 offence types

• e.g. nonviolent family offences, perjury, etc.

IBS: zero report

when no group A or group B offence happens during a reporting period

• helps distinguish agencies that fail to report data

NIBRS: Advantages

• more accurate count of all crime

• includes data about more offences

• gives detailed information on incidents

NIBRS: Disadvantages

• not all agencies report data

• doesn’t include information on all offence types

• can suffer from clerical mistakes/political problems

Victim survey

asks people about their experiences as victims of crime

Dark figure of crime

not all crimes are reported to police