CRM 1300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Uniform Crime Reports, Property Crime, Victimology

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Criminology
• Course: CRM 1300
• Professor: Michael Kempa

Document Summary

Uses + abuses of crime statistics: enlightment science: truth about modern society; good standards of empirical measurement, refle(cid:454)i(cid:448)e s(cid:272)ie(cid:374)(cid:272)e: authors should (cid:862)auto(cid:272)orre(cid:272)t(cid:863) Basic principles of measurement: reliability: consistent result over time, validity: how tool/instrument can actually measure the concept and represents it well, valid without reliability (bad), reliable without validity (good) Data elements: what"s to (cid:271)e (cid:272)olle(cid:272)ted, counting procedure: consensus on measure of unit and how data elements are defined. Standardized set of procedures for collecting/reporting crime throughout canada provides reliable data. Seriousness rule: most serious crime is scored: no scale of seriousness, causes overall crime rates to not represent the dark figure of crime. Shows vague dark figure of crime: crimes may still not be reported. Fear of crime disproportionate to risk of victimization: victimology: young unemployed males who go out a lot or most likely to be victimized; elderly less likely but most. Crime in canada fearful: crime is big business and pays for people to be frightened.