CRIM 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: General Social Survey, Uniform Crime Reports, Milgram Experiment

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Criminology
• Course: CRIM 101
• Professor: Barry Cartwright

Document Summary

Why dunnit and why? (and who cares, anyway?) Direct observation in natural settings ( ethnographic research) Not necessarily the most efficient manner to research crime. Criminals spend a lot of their time doing same things as non-criminals. Criminal behaviour tends to be secretive in nature. Criminals go out of their way to avoid observation or detection. If done successfully, ethnographic researchers may learn in depth info about criminal sub-cultures that are not usually amenable to investigation. Issues of informed consent (if you tell the subjects what you"re going to do, they may refuse, or alter their behavior) If you encourage subjects to break the law, you may be breaking the law yourself. Official crime rates usually based in the uniform crime report (ucr) Criminologists also look at the general social survey (gss) Many incidents of crime go undetected, or unreported, and consequently do not make it into the ucr.