CRIME STATISTICS

Articles in this Topic Discussions in this Topic

Sep 15, 2001

Criminology is big on numbers. The world likes to talk about crime rates: is crime up? Is it down? Who’s committing more crime? What are the odds you will be a victim? These discussions all depend on crime statistics. But what most people don’t like to talk about is that crime statistics are really not very good.

In the United States we get our crime statistics from one of 3 places: Victimization Studies, Self-Report Studies and official statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, most often a source called the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). When you read about crime rates being up or down in a newspaper, this information is usually coming from the UCR. However, researchers often try to look at all three places for a more accurate picture.

Victimization studies are projects conducted by research agencies in which a large portion of the population is surveyed and asked – “Has this ever happened to you?” We ask if the person has been a victim of something in the past month, year or 5 years. We might ask if they had their wallet stolen or if they have been attacked. This is not a perfect solution. Some people will not want to admit they have been a victim of a crime because they feel it was their fault or they are embarrassed. Other people may find it funny to lie and will say they were a victim when they really were not. Then there is the problem of interpretation. A man may truly believe his wallet was stolen, and report that he was a victim. But really his wallet is stuck in the seat of his car and he has yet to find it.

There are mathematical formulas for balancing these things and most often we believe that there is a balance that occurs. That is, for every person who may say they were a victim when they were not, there is a person who was a victim but is not telling.

Self-Report studies are the reverse of Victimization Studies. In these projects research agencies survey people and ask –“Have you committed this crime?” While anonymity is assured and no one gets in trouble for ‘confessing,’ this kind of research has the same problems as Victimization Studies. There are people who will lie. Some may say they’ve done something even if they haven’t and others who have done things will be too scared to admit it. Again, it is generally believed these two categories balance each other.

Go To Page: 1 2

The copyright of the article CRIME STATISTICS in Crime and Deviance is owned by Su Epstein. Permission to republish CRIME STATISTICS in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.