Transcript The Measurement of Crime

The Measurement of Crime:
Official Crime Data
1.
2.
UCR
NCVS
Police Statistics on Crime (UCR)
 Uniform Crime Reports
 Begun in 1930’s
UCR
 FBI receives data from more than 17,000 law
enforcement agencies (voluntarily reporting)
 For the most part, agencies submit monthly
crime reports to a centralized repository within
their state.
 The state UCR Program then forwards the data
to the FBI's national UCR Program.
 Coverage: 90% in cities, 87% in rural areas
UCR includes
1. Crimes reported to local law enforcement
agencies
2. The number of arrests made by police
agencies
Clearance
 Crimes are cleared in two ways:
 1. When at least one person is arrested,
charged, and turned over to the court for
prosecution
 2. When some element beyond police control
precludes the physical arrest of an offender
(for example, the offender leaves the country)
Structure of UCR
 Index Crimes (“Part I”)
 Murder
 Forcible rape
 Robbery
 Aggravated assault
 Burglary
 Larceny-theft
 Motor vehicle theft
 Arson (1979)
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Non-Index Crimes (“Part II”)
Simple assault
Forgery
Fraud
Embezzlement
Buying, receiving, and
possessing stolen property
Carrying/possessing weapons
Prostitution
Sex offences
Drug use violations
Gambling
Offense against family/children
Clearance (2005)
Offence
Frequency
Clearance Rate
1. Larceny-Theft
7 million
18%
2. Burglary
2 million
13%
3. Motor Vehicle Theft
1.2 million
14%
4. Aggravated Assault
1 million
56%
5. Robbery
500,000
25%
6. Rape
100,000
46%
7. Arson
80,000
16%
8. Murder
16,000
63%
Murder: Definition
 The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program
defines murder and nonnegligent manslaughter as
the willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human being
by another.
 The UCR Program does not include: suicide, or
accident; justifiable homicides; and attempts to
murder or assaults to murder, which are scored as
aggravated assaults
Ambiguity with murder
 A victim of aggravated assault dies
 Follow-up investigation are important for
correcting multiple monthly reports
 Less reliable agencies fail to record
subsequent death of the victim as murder
Killings that don’t count
 Death by driving
 According to the U.S. Department of
Transportation, 16,694 people died in
alcohol-related crashes in 2004, down 2.4
percent from 17,105 in 2003
Killings that don’t count
 Deaths in custody and During the Course of
Arrests
 Issue of deaths in prison or police custody or
at the hands of police in the course of arrests
 When police or prison officers cause the
deaths of those they encounter (suspects or
convicted criminals), these deaths are often
not viewed as unlawful
Killings that don’t count
 Hidden Bodies
 Missing Persons
Assessment of UCR data
 Unknown, probably massive amount of crime
that goes unreported to the police (“dark
figure” of crime)
 Participation in the UCR is voluntary, not all
police departments send crime reports to the
FBI
 UCR does not include white collar crimes
Assessment of UCR data
 ”Hierarchy rule”
 Auto theft, a less serious crime, has a very
high report-ability (artificially inflates the
crime index rate)
Assessment of UCR data
 UCR data are more valid indicators of the behavior
of the police than of offenders
1. Decision whether to record
2. Not always believe the victim’s account
3. May be busy to do the paperwork
(especially if the crime is not serious)
4. If there is no record = there is no crime
Assessment of UCR data
 Police departments have a dilemma (more
crime=more resources, less crime=good work)
 Poor, nonwhite males are more likely to be
arrested
 Research suggests that police personnel and
funds are concentrated in nonwhite poor
neighborhoods (more arrests in these areas)
Assessment of UCR data
 Official number of crimes might change
artificially (citizens become more or less likely
to report offenses committed against them)
 Example: increased number of reported rapes
in the last two decades partly reflect growing
awareness by women and police
Assessment of UCR data
 Police in various communities have different
understanding of crimes
 One study found that Los Angeles police
recorded any attempted or completed sexual
assault as rape, while Boston police recorded a
sexual assault as a rape only if it involved
completed sexual intercourse
 Result: Boston’s official rape rate was much
lower than that for Los Angeles
National Incident-Based Reporting System, or
NIBRS
 The NIBRS collects data on each single
incident and arrest within 22 crime categories
 For each offense known to police within these
categories: incident, victim, property,
offender, and arrestee information are
gathered when available
 Use of alcohol immediately before the offense
The National Crime
Victimization Survey (NCVS)
 The NCVS is under the auspices of the
Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
The National Crime
Victimization Survey (NCVS)
 Begun in early 1970’s
 Provide more detailed information than UCR
 Context of crime such as time of day and
physical setting in which it occurs
 Characteristics of crime victims
 Characteristics of the offenders
 Whether victimization has been reported to
the police
The National Crime
Victimization Survey (NCVS)
 Every six months the Census Bureau
interviews about 110,000 residents
 50,000 randomly selected households
 Aggravated and simple assault, rape and
sexual assault, robbery, burglary, larceny-theft,
motor vehicle theft
 No homicide, arson, commercial crimes, white
collar crimes, gambling
Forcible rape
 UCR: underreported crime
 NCVS: around 30% of victims report rape to
the police
Findings
 Males have higher victimization rates then
females for all violent crimes except
rape/sexual assault
 Young people have greater victimization risk
than older people (victim risk diminishes
rapidly after 25 years old)
 African Americans had higher violent
victimization rates than whites or other races
Findings
 People in the lowest income categories are
much more likely to become crime victims
 Females and African Americans were more
likely to report a crime to police than were
males and whites (Barkan, 1999)
Males victims of DV
 “I am larger than her. I was a one time amateur
boxing champion. She never used weapons,
so she never came close to hurting me
physically. But she hit me whenever she got
the notion to, she cut up my clothes and threw
them in the yard, she destroyed the trophies I
had accumulated in various sports
competitions since childhood, and she
destroyed a wedding album. Neither party was
blameless, but the physical violence was all
hers”
Males victims of DV
 “I was in a hellish marriage with a woman
who had difficulty controlling her rage, which
would frequently erupt with her hitting, verbal
abuse, and screaming. If fighting with her did
occur, it was self-defense; if she threw a
punch or kicked, I defended myself. In one
particular case, after she initiated a fight by
kicking and throwing punches, she called the
police to report me as the violent abuser!
When they responded, I was seen as the bad
guy, she was the victim! “
Males victims of DV
 “I was abused too many times and decided to
end the relationship but I was unable to do
so. The abuse intensified, she did not
hesitate to hit me ... She also clawed me
numerous time and even cut me with a knife.
I was again failed to report the incidents to
the authority. Many times she had threatened
me that if I bring any charges against her, she
would not hesitate to bring false charges
against me ...”
Assessment of NCVS
 Document a massive amount of crime that goes
unreported
 Underestimate crime rate (insignificant crimes
tend to be forgotten)
 Victims of several crimes may also forget about
all the crimes
 Females do not report victimization if her abuser
live in the same household
Assessment of NCVS
 Reported victimization rates usually decease
with each interview (awareness of
victimization)
 Overestimation of some crimes
 Respondents might mistakenly interpret some
noncriminal events as crimes
 “Telescoping “ effect
UCR and NCVS
 UCR data are based on reported criminal
acts (offender characteristics)
 NCVS data based on individuals actually
victimized (characteristics of victims)