SOC 368 1st Edition Lecture 4 Outline of Previous Lecture I. Basic MeaningII.Crime is Socially ConstructedIII.Paradigms Outline of Current Lecture I.Irony of Official StatisticsII.ReportabilityIII.Major MeasuresCurrent Lecture Critiques of Official StatisticsI. Irony of official statisticsa. The farther we go into the crime and justice system, the more data we havei. However, this data is less representative of the true rate of time (remember the crime circle, and how each of the sections are interconnected)1. The dark figure and true rate of crime (TRC) vs. crimes known to police (CKP)ii. CKP is a distorted number, as we know; it differs for different crimes1. Undercounting of crime, including violent and property crimesII. Reportabilitya. Likelihood of being reported to the policeb. Different crimes have different reportabilityi. Murder has the highest reportablility, even though there are different types1. It is the easiest to report because there is often a dead body or someone missing/presumed to be deadii. How we shape crime shapes what we count1. Different cases of killings are counted differentlya. If a military officer intentionally kills someone in the line ofduty, it is usually not counted as murderb. If a professor intentionally kills someone, it is considered murder in most casesThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.iii. Motor Vehicle Theft is another highly reported crime, since again, it is easy to tell if a car is missingiv. Crimes done by intimates are MUCH less reported than the likely actual number1. Intimates refer to anyone with some form of relationship, not just intimate partners (eg. parents, family members, friends, boyfriends, husbands, etc.)2. Rape is VASTLY underreported a. Partly due to our own guidelines defining what rape is i. For a years, rape was only defined as ‘forcible’, meaning that cases where people had non-consenting sex were often considered as not being rapeii. In the NCVS, the questions surrounding rape were extremely inconclusive, not taking into consideration alcohol/drugs/male victims/psychological coercion/attempted rape/etcb. another reason is that rape victims often know their attackers, making it difficult to come forward for various reasons 3. One remedy to underreporting is “triangulation”a. A method used to get multiple measures of the same crime; different angles help to make the most of a situation to get the factsIII. Major Issuesa. Official vs. not official crime reportingi. Rather than this being based on the quality of the report (rigor/validity/reliability), this only refers to if the report was collected by government authorities or notii. If it is official, it is more likely to be used in news reports, policy reforms, etc.b. The big distinction within official measures is police based vs. victim basedi. Victim based: data helps with reportability for the dark figure of crime and increases the CKP1. National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is administered to households across the nation, making it a representative sample of households, yet there are many ways in which this too has underrepresentation of the TRCa. A large reason for why intimate crime is so often underreportedb. Response bias and questionable wording also result in underrepresentationc. Those with more privilege are often more likely to speak up against crime although they are less targeted; those ofless privilege are undercounted yet more victimized by street crimeii. Police based1. Uniform Crime Reports (UCR): Data on crime reported monthly, split into two official parts plus one unofficial part2. Part I: Index crimes; supposedly the most serious crimes; split into 8 types between two categories: violent and propertya. good when index goes down, bad when the index goes upb. violent crimes: aggravated assault, rape, murder, robberyi. ‘rape’ was originally classified as ‘forcible rape’ only, meaning that several cases were undercountedc. property crimes: arson, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theftd. huge source of bias towards street crime, which is linked torace, class and gendere. bias away from white collar crimei. fear of violent street crime is exacerbated more than actual violent crime is actually committed; theresult is that people are less biased towards white, upper-class men for committing crime, although people are more affected by these crimes that street crime3. Part II: 21 types, categorized as less serious crimes; not related to the Crime Index4. “Part III”: Hate crimes; often left out/forgotten 5. National Incident Based Report System (NIBRS)a. incident based reporting system; counts more crime and collects more data about each typeb. Does NOT use the hierarchy systemi. UCR required to utilize this system, where if multiple crimes are committed, only the worst crime counts, and all of the other ones are cancelled out1. A huge reason for undercounting2. Event vs. incident based reportingc. Data is collected on every incident iii. Main Critiques of UCR1. Limited to police based numbers2. Limited to legally defined crimes3. No federal level crimes4. Distorts seriousnessa. Eg. Larson in the past, burglary in the present5. FBI estimates6. Hierarchy rule is mandatory7. The TRC is still much higher than the CKP (large dark