The Nature of Crime and Victimization

1. Chapter 2 The Nature of Crime and Victimization

2. Measuring Crime • Primary sources for measuring crime are: • Official Data (Uniform Crime Reports) • Victim Surveys (National Crime Victim Survey) • Self-Report Surveys

3. Weaknesses of the Uniform Crime Reports • They only measure crime reported to the police • All crime is not counted the same • Indexed crimes are measured when reported • Non-indexed crimes are counted when an arrest is made • Reporting practices

4. Revising the Uniform Crime Reporting System • Definitions of crimes will be revised. • Counting method will be by the number of incidents. • More crimes will be included in each category. • Other changes to make the data more accurate.

5. National Crime Victim Survey • Data is gathered by the Bureau of Census and compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. • Sample includes 100,000 people in 50,000 households. • Respondents are over the age of 12. • Respondents queried every six months about household and personal victimizations.

6. Self-Reported Crime Data • Asks respondents to tell about their criminal activities. • Measures the “dark figure of crime.” • Reveals that crime is a very common activity. • Demonstrates youth crime is spread throughout the social classes. • Is probably a reliable measure of trends over a period of time.

7. Compatibility of Crime Statistic Sources • Prominent crime experts have concluded that the data sources are more compatible than was first believed. • Tallies of crimes are not in synch, but trends reported are often quite similar.

8. Explaining Crime Trends • Factors that influence crime rate trends include: • Social factors • Economic factors • Personal factors • Demographic factors

9. The Ecology of Crime • Crime is not equally spread across society. • Some factors that account for different crime patterns are: • Day, season and climate • Population density • Firearms and crime • The Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland is the principle international source of public information on all aspects of small arms.

10. The Ecology of Victimization • Most victimization occurs in large urban areas. • Most incidents occur in the evening hours. • The most likely sites are open public areas. • An overwhelming number involve only one victim. • Most serious crimes take place after 6 p.m.

11. Social Class and Crime • A still-unresolved issue in criminology is the relationship between social class and crime. • Traditional crime has been thought of as a lower-class phenomenon (instrumental and expressive crime). • Methodologies used to measure the phenomenon vary widely.

12. Gender and Crime • Three data-gathering statistics tools support the theory that male crime rates are much higher than those of females. • Explanations include: • Masculinity hypothesis • Chivalry hypothesis • Socialization • Development • Liberal feminist theory

13. Race and Crime • Official crime data indicate that minority groups’ members are involved in a disproportionate share of criminal activity. • Critics of these data argue police bias in the arrest process creates the differences. • Some critics believe institutional racism creates economic deprivation which leads to more crime. • Other researchers focus on family dissolution as an explanatory factor.

14. Careers and Crime • Most offenders commit a single criminal act and upon arrest discontinue their antisocial activity. • Some commit a few less serious crimes. • Career criminals or chronic offenders account for a majority of all criminal offenses.