CRM 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: 2010 Winter Olympics, Sextortion, Nimby
5 Jun 2018
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CHAPTER 3
Crime Rates
Crime Rate: Number of incidents known to the police expressed in terms of the number of
people in the population (for every 100,000 people)
● (Criminal incidents/total population) x 100,000
● (415,119/34,800,000) x 100,000
● 1190 violent crimes per 100, 000 people
● Method that Federal government uses to compile crime statistics can be seen as
inaccurate, certain categories of crime may not be declining
● Method includes only counting the most serious crimes committed by the same person,
reporting the rates rather than the volume of crime, and dealing with variations of police
reporting practices
● Many crimes aren’t reported by victims, and others go undetected; results in a dark
figure of crime
○ The difference between how much crime occurs and how much crime is reported
to or discovered by the police
○ Other strategies to gain a more a more accurate view of crime
○ Actual crime vs. Detected crime vs. Reported crime
■ Actual crime= dark figure of crime itself (actual amount of crime occurring
in society)
■ Detected crime= crime that’s actually discovered or detected by the police
■ Reported crime= crimes that are reported by citizens to the police
● Research studies have revealed the following:
○ The rate of reporting to the police has declined in recent years
○ The likelihood of victims calling the police isn’t related to the seriousness of the
offence
○ Crime is underreported in many Aboriginal communities
○ A utilitarian factor appears to be at work in victims’ decisions to call the police;
they know there is little the police can do for many types of crimes
● Self-report surveys (ask respondents whether they have committed a criminal offence)
and Victimization surveys (ask respondents whether they have been victimized and
whether they reported it to the police; attempt to gain more accurate view of the
incidence of crime
● Majority of crimes are brought to the attention of police by witnesses or victims; less than
5% of crimes are discovered by the police without assistance
Crime Trends
● The police- reported crime rate has declined and is at its lowest level since 1972
● The crime severity index, which includes the volume and seriousness of police-reported
crime, has declined over the past decade
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● Violent crime continues to decline, but the rates of crime are highest in the territories and
Western regions of the country
● Property crimes have generally declined over the past decade
● Police-reported youth crime has declined in recent years
● Crime rates were decreasing long before the federal government increased the number
of mandatory minimum sentences and started implementing their legislative agenda
● Decrease is most likely due to the decline of males in the crime-prone 18-24 age range
and the increase of technology for crime prevention
Crime in First Nations and Inuit Communities
● Two of the biggest challenges facing the criminal justice system are the high rates of
crime and victimization in many Aboriginal communities and the overrepresentation of
Aboriginal people at all stages of the justice process
● First Nations women are particularly vulnerable to violence and there are very few
programs and resources available to assist them
○ Typically have to leave their communities to seek safety in a women’s shelter
hundreds of kilometres from home
● Police are often the only nearby representatives of the justice system, court services are
delivered via fly-in or drive-in circuit courts composed of a judge, a Crown attorney, a
defence lawyer and court officials
● Corrections services are often non existent and correctional institutions are often
hundreds of thousands of kilometres away
The Costs of Crime
● The estimated annual cost of the criminal justice system was around $31 billion
● $100 billion if factoring in the pain and suffering of victims, the reduction in quality of life,
and lost income
● Spousal violence annual cost is estimated at $7.4 billion; includes costs associated with
the criminal and civil justice system
○ Intangible costs to victims (Criminal and civil justice systems), including pain and
suffering and loss of life, healthcare costs, and third party costs (impact on
family)
● Cyber crime of hacking is estimated $1.4 billion a year in Canada and $110 billion
globally
Public Confidence in The Criminal Justice System
● People feel that the criminal justice system should be doing more to protect society
● Key requirement for an effective criminal justice system is that it’s viewed as legitimate
by the general public
○ The justice system must be viewed as ensuring the security of the community
while at the same time protecting the rights of citizens
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find more resources at oneclass.com
● Canadians generally express low levels of confidence in the criminal justice system
● The Canadian public seems to have less confidence in the justice system than in other
public sector institutions, such as education
● Public trust in the police has declined in recent years, in large measure because of a
number of high-profile incidents; trust of police officers declined from 73% to 57%
between 2003 and 2011
● Canadian public feels the criminal justice system is too lenient on offenders
● Canadians consistently overestimate the levels of crime and the rates of recidivism,
underestimate the severity of punishment given to offenders, tend to believe that the
criminal justice system is biased in favour of defendants, and overestimate both the
rates of parole release and the reoffending rates of paroles
● Criminal justice system viewed as being only “for people with money, arbitrary, difficult to
navigate and inaccessible to ordinary people… and even unfair”
● Community sentiment about offenders and the justice system are often expressed
through interest groups that lobby for more severe sanctions for criminal offenders,
longer periods of incarceration, and more stringent requirements for release
● Opposition is often referred to under the acronym NIMBY (Not in my backyard)
○ Resistance that communities display in response to correctional systems’ efforts
to locate programs and residences for offenders in a specific area
● Vigilantism occurs in extreme cases (when a community takes the law into their own
hands, ex. Citizens in the United States arm themselves)
● Levels of public confidence in the criminal justice system aren’t related to crime rate or
victimization; no relationship between the severity of sanctions imposed on offenders
and the criminal justice system
The Media and Public Attitudes Toward The Criminal Justice System
● For most Canadians, television, the internet, and newspapers are primary sources of
information about crime and the criminal justice system
● Crime and police shows produced in Canada and the United States have the largest
viewing audiences
○ May oversimplify complex issues of crime and criminal justice
○ Media tends to be biased toward sensational crimes and to simplify crime and
justice issues
○ Gives us the wrong reality of the criminal justice system
● Incidents reported and featured in the media tend to be those with negative outcomes
○ Contributes to uninformed and misinformed public
○ There are real aspects of the criminal justice system that need to be improved
■ Feed into public sentiments of criminal justice issues
Other Factors Affecting Public Confidence in the Criminal Justice System
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Crime rate: number of incidents known to the police expressed in terms of the number of people in the population (for every 100,000 people) (criminal incidents/total population) x 100,000 (415,119/34,800,000) x 100,000. 1190 violent crimes per 100, 000 people. Method that federal government uses to compile crime statistics can be seen as inaccurate, certain categories of crime may not be declining. Method includes only counting the most serious crimes committed by the same person, reporting the rates rather than the volume of crime, and dealing with variations of police reporting practices. Many crimes aren"t reported by victims, and others go undetected; results in a dark figure of crime. The difference between how much crime occurs and how much crime is reported to or discovered by the police. Other strategies to gain a more a more accurate view of crime. Actual crime= dark figure of crime itself (actual amount of crime occurring in society)
