1. Counting Crime Methods for Counting Crime?
Current Crime Numbers/Trends
Explaining the Crime Drop

2. Methods of Measuring Crime
Uniform Crime Reports
Self- Report Surveys
Victim Surveys

3. Uniform Crime Reports Based on Crimes Reported to the Police
Based on a population unit of 100,000 people
Divided into two representative
categories: Indexed and non-Indexed
Reported for U.S., Cities, and SMSA’s
Crimes known / Arrest = Clearance Rate

4. Uniform Crime Reports Violent Crime Non-violent Crime
Part I “Index” Crimes
Criminal Homicide
Forcible Rape
Robbery
Aggravated assault
Burglary
Larceny/theft
Motor vehicle theft
Arson
Part II Crimes
All others except traffic
Non-violent
Crime

5. Criticisms and Limitations of the UCR
Cannot capture the “dark figure” of crime
Methodological Hiccups
Counting Rule
Reporting Practices
Attempted vs. Completed Crimes

6. The Future of the Uniform Crime Reports
National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
Maintained by the F.B.I.
Twenty-two crime categories
More information on each crime in each category
Data compiled based on incidents, not arrests.

7. Self-Report Surveys Get at “Dark Figure of Crime” “Victimless Crimes”
Participants (usually juveniles) reveal information about their violations of the law
Advantages
Get at “Dark Figure of Crime”
“Victimless Crimes”
Compare to “official data”
Measure theoretical concepts and connect with criminal behavior

8. Self-Report Surveys Disadvantages
May underestimate “chronic offenders”
People Can Lie
Survey Methodology Problems
Seriousness of Offense

9. National Crime Victimization Survey
1. Asks victims about their encounters with criminals
2. Nationally representative sample
3. May also describe people most at risk 4. Limitations:
Little information about offenders
Cannot assess some crimes
Limitations of Survey Research

10. REVIEW UCR Self-report NCVS
Aggregate Data (see trends), Crimes known to police
Self-report
Individual level data, links offender characteristics to criminal offending
NCVS
Aggregate Data (see trends), victimizations

11. Crime Trends and Correlates of Crime
Is crime increasing, decreasing or stable?
Why?
Correlates of Crime
What factors are related to crime?
Geographic location, Age, Race, Gender, Social Class?

12. Crime Trends
UCR and NCVS data reveal a steady decrease in violent crime since the mid 1990s
The decrease is being driven by a sharp decline in violent crime among juveniles.
NCVS indicates a long term trend of decreasing property crime
Some difference with UCR data

17. Duluth Violent Crime

18. Duluth Violent Crime

19. MN vs. National Violent Crime (per 100,000 citizens)

20. Explaining Crime Trends
The usual suspects
Age Composition
The Economy
Social malaise
Guns—Availability
Justice Policy—Police or Prisons
Reality? Difficult to predict trends

21. The Crime Drop (1990s-present)
Again, think young males in inner city areas
Decline of the “Crack Cocaine” wars
The “blunt” era
Change in inner city culture
Mass incarceration
Freakonomics: Was it Abortion?

22. Correlates of Crime
Demographics
Age
Sex
Race

23. GENDER AND CRIME
UCR, NCVS, and SR data all indicate that females are more likely than males to commit criminal acts
Socialization?
Biological differences?
Feminist explanations

24. RACE AND CRIME SR weak if any relationship
Official data  strong relationship
Is relationship due to bias?
How police patrol and interact with minorities
Disparity in how CJS processes minorities?
NCVS data confirms some “true” race-crime relationship. Why does race predict crime?
Relationship to class, neighborhood, culture

25. The Age-Crime Curve

26. Age and Crime Crime is “young” persons game HOWEVER
There is a group of “chronic” offenders that persist in crime after adulthood
The “Chronic” 6%

27. Continuity of Crime Cohort studies clearly show that
most chronic juvenile offenders continue
their law-violating careers as adults.
Then and ………….. NOW

28. Crime Victimization
Criminals and victims tend to look the same demographically
Most crime is intraracial
Victimization for most crimes most likely among
Young
Male
Urban

29. What is counted counts
We have no “UCR” mechanism to gauge white collar crime
How to assess insider trading, environmental crimes, corporate crime?
Most large corporate crime prosecutions in in a settlement