20 Mar Discussion 6
1 main post -you must select 2 topics from the chapter and summarize in depth.
2. Understand what crimes are included in different measures.
3. Describe different measures of crime and how they are based on different units of analysis.
4. Understand different purposes for collecting crime data.
5. Explain different measures based on crimes known to police.
6. Describe the main features of victim surveys.
7. Distinguish the main differences between crimes known to police and crimes measured through different types of surveys.
8. Understand why self-report measures are used, and list different types of crimes for which they are appropriate.
9. Summarize the major series of self-reported measures of drug use.
10. Understand how surveillance measures are obtained and used.
11. Explain how different measures of crime satisfy criteria for measurement quality.
Recognize that we have different measures of crime because each measure is imperfect.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
1. Measures of crime are important for many criminal justice research purposes
2. Crime is a fundamental variable in criminal justice and criminology
1. Researchers must decide on offenses, units of analysis, and purposes before specifying measures of crime
A. What Offenses?
1. Crime: acts of force or fraud undertaken in pursuit of self-interest
2. Crime: any act committed in violation of a law that prohibits it and authorizes punishment for its commission
3. One of the principal difficulties we encounter when we try to measure crime is that many different types of behaviors and actions are included in our conceptualization of a crime
4. Different measures tend to focus on different types of crime
B. What Units of Analysis?
1. Units of analysis are the specific entities researchers collect information about
a. Offender
i. Without an offender there is no crime
b. Victim
i. Some sort of victim is required
ii. In a legal sense, victimless crimes do not exist because crimes are acts that injure society, organizations, and/or individuals
c. Offense
i. An individual act of burglary, auto theft, bank robbery, and so on
d. Incident
i. FBI: one or more offenses committed by the same offender, or group of offenders acting in concert, at the same time and place
1. Police-based crime measures are the most widely used, but they are subject to certain types of error
2. Police come to know about crime in two ways:
a. Observation
i. Victimless crimes
ii. Traffic offenses
b. Reports by others
i. Victims or witnesses
3. Police do not always make official records of crimes they observe or crimes reported to them
1. Police measures of crime form the basis for the FBIs Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
a. Data series collected since 1930
b. Has shortcomings but is still an essential measure for researchers and public officials
c. Does not attempt to count all crimes reported to police
i. Part I Offenses:
(a) Murder
(b) Non-negligent manslaughter
(c) Forcible rape
(d) Robbery
(e) Aggravated assault
(f) Burglary
(g) Larceny-theft
(h) Motor vehicle theft
ii. Part II Offenses
(a) Counted only if person is arrested and charged with a crime
(b) One reason is that individual states have different definitions of crimes
2. FBI compiles its UCR figures from data submitted by individual states or local law enforcement agencies
TEXT BOOK
Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology
8th Edition, Maxfiled, Cengage ISBN: 9781337091824
you have the powerpoint so i do not think you need the book
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