CRM 1300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Uniform Crime Reports, Spurious Relationship, Dependent And Independent Variables

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Criminology
• Course: CRM 1300
• Professor: Sam Alvaro

Document Summary

Patterns of criminality and methods of gathering crime statistics: criminological research, research design, crime patterns in canada, official state statistics, uniform crime reports, why do crime statistics change, victimization surveys, crime rates. Criminological knowledge: based on a science, a logical organized method of obtaining information through direct, systematic observation. Measurement & relationships: measurement requires reliability - the quality of consistent measurement and validity - the quality of measuring precisely what one intends to measure, relationships among variables. 3 conditions for causality: variable a must proceed b, must be a correlation, must not be a spurious correlation, prior to the 18th century, theories about crime causation were largely based on religious beliefs and superstition. Sampling: social scientists rely on small groups of people, a sample, to reflect the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of a larger group of humans, the population, ex. Survey research: uses interviews & questionnaires (aggregate research);