Transcript Self-reports - Washington State University

Self-reports
1. Quiz # 2
2. Definition
3. Samples of self-reports
Answer Key
• Arrests for violent crimes comes from UCR
The number of persons arrested for homicide,
forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault as
reported by law enforcement agencies to the FBI
• Crimes recorded by the police comes from
UCR The number of homicides, forcible rapes,
robberies, and aggravated assaults included in the
Uniform Crime Reports of the FBI
Answer Key
• Victimizations reported to the police comes from
UCR+NCVS
The number of homicides – from UCR
The number of rapes, robberies, and aggravated
assaults – from NCVS (victims said whether they
reported to the police)
• Total serious violent crime comes from
UCR+NCVS
The number of homicides – from UCR
The number of rapes, robberies, and aggravated
assaults – from NCVS whether or not they were
reported to the police.
Self-reports
• The basic approach of the self-report
method is to ask individuals if they have
engaged in delinquent or criminal
behavior, and if so, how often they have
done so.
Self-reports data
• Created to complement UCR and NCVS
• Started in 1950s to tap “hidden
delinquency”
• Ask individuals if they have engaged in
• delinquent or criminal behavior, and if
so, how often they have done so
Types of self-reports
• Longitudinal surveys: Such reports can
be obtained from the same group of
people over a long period of time
• Cross-sectional surveys: can be
obtained from different groups of people
at the same point in time
Self-reports
• Most youths involved in violent crimes
are never arrested for a violent crime
(Elliott et al., 1989; Loeber et al., 1998;
Huizinga et al., 1995)
• Thus, arrests seriously underestimate
the volume of violent crime and fail to
distinguish accurately between those
who are and are not involved in violence
Austin Porterfield (1943)
• The first published results from a selfreport
• He analyzed the juvenile court records of
2,049 delinquents (Texas) and identified
55 offenses for which they had been
adjudicated
• Surveyed 437 students from three colleges
in northern Texas to determine if and how
frequently they had committed any of the
55 offenses
• Every one of the college students had
committed at least one of these offenses
Austin Porterfield (1943)
• The offenses committed by the college
students were as serious as those
committed by the adjudicated
delinquents (although not as frequent),
yet few of the college students had
come into contact with legal authorities
Wallerstein and Wylie (1947)
• Sampled a group of 1,698 adult men
and women and examined self-reports
of their delinquent behavior committed
before the age of 16
• They mailed questionnaires containing
49 offenses to their sample
• Almost all reported committing at least
one delinquent act included on their
checklist
Potential of self-reports
• By including questions about other aspects of
adolescent life with a delinquency scale in the
same questionnaire, researchers could
explore etiological issues of delinquency
• Theoretically interesting issues concerning
the family, peers, and school
Samples for self-reports
• Adult inmates of jails and prisons
• Adolescents, usually high school students
• The results of most self-report studies are
shocking- for any population (even a lawabiding one), about 90% of the people in the
sample have committed a crime (for which
the punishment is more than a year in
prison)
• Middle-class youth commit as much crime as
working-class youth
Violent offending by race..
• Self-reports and arrest rates provide different
pictures of violent offending by race
• Self-reports reveal small differences between
African American and white youths
• Arrest records, on the other hand, reveal
large differences ( nine African American
youths were arrested for every white youth in
2003)
Explanations for this discrepancy
• Selective reporting of offenses to the
police
• Different patterns of police surveillance
• Racial/ethnic biases on the part of
police, victims, and witnesses (Austin &
Allen, 2000; Sampson & Lauritsen,
1997).
Assessment of self-report studies
• Focus on minor and trivial offenses
(truancy, running away from home,
minor drug and alcohol use)
• Although recent studies (NYS) asked
subjects about rape and robbery
• Respondents might not to tell the truth
(reliability issues)
If respondents lie….
• Self-report data can be checked against
police records, school records, interviews
with teachers and parents
• The use of, or threat of, polygraph validation
(20% change their initial responses when
threatened with a “lie detector”)
• Subsequent interviewing of subjects permits
probing regarding the details and context of
acts
• Use of “lie scales”
Example of lie scale
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
I always tell the truth
Sometimes I tell lies
Once in a while I get angry
I never feel sad
Sometimes I do things I am not
supposed to do
6. I have never taken anything that did
not belong to me
Assessment of self-report studies
• Several self-report studies included only
boys (no female offending data)
• Overestimation of some crimes
• Ignore white collar crimes and serious
violent crimes
UCR, NCVS, and self-reports
• None of the three is perfect
• For the best estimates of the actual number
of crimes, NCVS data are preferable
• For the best estimates of offender
characteristics, self-reports and NCVS are
preferable
• UCR are superior for understanding the
geographical distribution of crime