Constructing Images of Crime

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Constructing Images of Crime

• Crime it is everywhere
• - in 1992 62 took precautionary measures

2
Crime Data

• How much crime is there?
• What are the patterns and trends in crime?
• Who commits crime?
• What is the nature of criminality?
• make up the study of criminology
• --- try to be objective in answering

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Purpose of Crime Data

• Another sub-area of the criminological enterprise
• we try to generate reliable and valid data
• FIVE key purposes
• 1. Descriptive
• 2. Explanation
• 3. Program evaluation
• 4. Risk assessment, and
• 5. Prediction.

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www.ecriccanada.com/geoprof.htm

• Kim Rossmo and geoprofiling (Box 3.3)
• descriptive to prediction
• hi-tech crime fighting strategy
• integrates theory and practice
• reduce false positives
• Ethic concerns?!
• Future implications (DNA, forensics, satellite
  tracking, etc.)

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The looking glasses of crime

• Defining
• Actual crime
• Official crime
• Dark figure
• Official Sources
• .. . Huff 54 secret language of statistics
• reality is merely an appearance of something
  more real

6
Police Data

• Although NOT the first, today the most frequently
  used form of official data
• Address the dark figure
• UCR
• History
• 1962 and standardization
• Summary vs. indictable offences

7
Judicial Data

• France and Compte General in 1825
• The work of Guerry and Quetelet
• Canada began collection 1876
• Role of the CCJS
• Growth of Legal Aid vs. court costs
• Examine sentencing lengths

8
Correctional Data

• English prison data as early as 1836
• Demographic and socio-economic information
• From Prison Statistics to CCJS
• Federal vs. Provincial data
• Info re incarceration rates, expenditures, inmate
  profiles, etc.

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The limits of Official Data

• Data reflect official responses to social
  behaviours as defined by the Criminal Code
• Crime Funnel (Table 3-4)
• Suggestive rather than declarative
• artificial fluctuation
• Public interest, police enforcement practices,
  recording procedures

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Crime rates drop 6th year - 98

• WHY?
• Linden 96 just getting too old
• Foot 96 shift in demographics
• RAT shift in opportunity
• if demographic can predict how use in policy???

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• To calculate crime rates
• of reported crimes
• R/100 000 ----------------X 100 000
• total population
• !! Census ever 10 years, mini 5 yrs.
• reported vs. charges

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Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics

• History 1974-1981 a need for a central
  information collection and dissemination centre
• 1981 Juristat Bulletins
• Yet limitations no uniform court data, limited
  insight in crime and criminal behaviour, nothing
  on white collar crime, organized crime,
  victimless crimes

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• See Box 3.6
• CCJS continues to evolve
• CCJS a primary source of official data
• Quality of data improving but theoretical
  foundation still lacking
• Relevance of unofficial sources

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Victimization Data

• Pioneers Ezzat Fattah, Hans Hentig, and Stephen
  Schafer all European heritage
• overlooked in N.A. until recently
• OBJECTIVES
• measure extent and distribution of selected
  crimes
• impact risk of victimization indicators of CJ
  functioning

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• GSS 88, 93, 98 (Box 3.7)
• CUVS 81-88 (Box 3.8A)
• VAWS 96 (Box 3.8B)
• Left Realism and Feminist T
• ICVS Jan van Dijk (NL) 17 to 54 countries
  participate
• Caution
• !sampling, questions, memory, urban, types of
  crime

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Self-Report Data

• Thorsten Sellin 31 1st to suggest importance
• pragmatic approach to enumeration
• focus groups diverse BUT young offenders
• males, urban, property crimes, illuminate the
  dark figure

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• Methodological issues
• comparability
• standardization
• different interests
• honesty
• trust interviewer
• deep sense of guilt
• exaggerate
• BUT, many improvements
• DeKeseredy and abuse Farrington youth
  corporate crime

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• Observational Procedures
• field research
• data directly
• impression and first hand
• face validity
• Humphrey and tearoom (Verstehen, symbolic
  interactionism )
• Types non-participant participant
• triangulation
• convergence-discriminant validity
• dark figure
• Research methodology and epistemology

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Objectives and Purpose

• Correlates of crime
• Cause vs. probability
• Discovery
• Demonstration
• Refutation
• Prediction
• RESEARCH METHODOLOGY - theory

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Summary

• Describe and evaluate the four main methods of
  gathering and interpreting data
• each has strengths and weaknesses
• choice depends on resources and objectives
• criminologists take sides
• Need for integration and interdisciplinary

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See you next class...