CRM 1300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Motor Vehicle Theft, General Social Survey, Participant Observation
26 Feb 2016
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Document Summary
The number of crimes decrease as we move down the funnel. Gives us characteristics of crimes in a society. 2500000 criminal code offences reported to police annually. 2400000 offences reported by police as actual (crime) Alternative to official statistics: revealing the dark figure of crime, observational studies, ethnology, participant observation, first-hand accounts, victim surveys, canadian urban victimizations survey, general social survey, self-report studies. Victim survey: product of the victim/ survivors movement , requesting information about experiences as victims (usually over one year, # victimization and types of crimes, attributes, behaviour of the offenders. Limitation of victim surveys: many crimes can"t be tapped, many victimizations goes unnoticed, we forget or are unwilling to divulge. Self-report studies: ask people to confess their crimes, general findings. 3: almost everyone has broken the law, most self-admitted offending is minor c. Limitations: research avoids serious criminality, under-reporting and misinformation, research and legal definition don"t coincide, the need for triangulation (multiple methods)
