Choosing a source

1. Who is your population of interest?

2. What is your crime of interest?
3. Are you interested in long-term trends?
4. Are you interested in crimes that have been reported to authorities?
5. Are you interested in generalizing trends to the whole country or to a specific locality?

Self-reports
o Generally accomplished through surveys of the general public, commonly high school or
college students.
o Ideally, get a large sample that is nationally representative
o Self-report surveys began in the 1940s
Limitations
o Often don’t ask about serious crimes
o “Science of sophomores”
o People may not be truthful and accurate in their reporting.

Crime Trends and Correlates of Crime

In the US
1. Overall, crime in the US is on the decline.
2. Generally speaking, crime is rare.
3. Most crimes committed are property crimes.
4. Less serious crimes are more common that serious crimes
5. The most commonly occurring crime is larceny-theft.
Violent Crime in the US
o Violent crime rates rose through the late 1970s and 1980s
o Peaked in the early 1990s
o Violent crime rates have been declining ever since
o There appears to be a slight uptick in violent crime in the past few years
Property crime in the US
o Similar to violent crime, property crime rates rose in the 1970s and 1980s
o Peaked in the 1990s
o Have been declining steadily since the 1990s

Who is an offender?
Offender- a person who:
commits an illegal act
attempts to commit an illegal act
conspires to commit an illegal act
allows and illegal act to take place
o Every crime has an offender.
Correlates of crime
Correlate- a variable thay is related to an outcome of interest
Main Correlates
1. Sex
2. Age
3. Race
4. Socioeconomical status
5. Geographic location

*sex is the strongest correlate of crime

Males are more involved in crime than females
Male-to-female arrest ratio: 3 to 1
However, female arrests have increased slightly while male arrests have declined with the
overall crime rate

Most crimes are commited between the ages of 16 and 24

Crime is much lower as individuals get into adulthood, middle-age, and their elder years
The age-crime curve is consistant across time and across many different countries

African americans are disproportionally involved in crime, according to official statistics

Racial differences are the most pronounced for the most serious offenses
Asian americans tend to be the lease involved in crime

Socioeconimic status (SES) is measured differently depending on the study, so the relationship
sometimes has mixed results
What we know:
Crime and poverty are often related to one another
Offenders tend to habe lower levels of education
Offenders are often unemployed and/or have low income levels

Southern and Western parts of US have the most crime

State with the highest crime rates: Alaska (not including DC)
State with the lowest crime rate: Maine
Urban areas have more violent and property crime that suburban or rural areas