PPT 2 May 9, 2023

Counting Crime CRCJ 1000A

How do we know what we know
about crime?
• Where do you get your information about
crime?
• Do most Canadians have a realistic view of
crime? What about punishment?
• Has your opinion of crime & punishment
changed after taking university courses?

IDEA: Jot down what you believe about crime &

punishment now; revisit what you wrote at the
end of the course. What has changed? What has
remained the same?
 Methodology: need to critically
How can we examine the methods used to
obtain reliable count crime.

and valid data

on the scope Validity: does the tool actually
and nature of measure crime?

crime?
Reliability: how consistent are
the results?
The Crime Rate Based on police-reported data
only

Amount of crime divided by

population, multiplied by 100,000

Q: Is the crime rate lower than

actual crime?

Q: Does Toronto have the highest

crime rate in all of Canada?
 • Crime that is not reported nor does it
The Dark Figure of come to the attention of the police

Crime • 30% of crimes overall are reported to

the police

• Only 5-10% of sexual assaults are

reported to the police

Q: How do we know about the dark figure

of crime?
The crime
funnel
Discretion &
Differential Processing

Detection (police)

Bail system (surety)

Legal representation ($)

Judges (mitigating factors)

Corrections (higher risk/parole)

 Indigenous prisoners

• Indigenous federal prison population

32%
• Indigenous female prison population
48% (fastest growing prison pop in
last decade)
• While incarcerated:
• Less likely to get bail
• More likely to be classified higher
risk
• Longer sentences
• Less likely to get paroled
Link to article
 CJS administrative records are not
From statistics
Records to
Statistics
Records are concerned with individual
cases (e.g., an offender)

Statistics are aggregated; they are

concerned with what is common among
many individual cases
How do we measure crime?

• Three dominant ways to count crime or describe crime patterns and trends:

• Official (police-reported) statistics

• Victimization surveys

• Self-report studies
The Uniform Crime Report
• 1962 (with newer versions since then)
• Data collected directly by police services
• Includes info on number of criminal offences, the
clearance status of each of these offences, & the
number of persons charged
• Federal & provincial governments use UCR to inform
decisions (policies, legislation, allocate resources).
• Limitations: Differences in how various police agencies
record incidents (ex: downplaying incident; recording
only one crime; intentionally manipulating data).
Do all reported crimes get counted
in the UCR?

Link to article
Factors influencing crime data (1)

Number of police forces/officers

Police or court administration

• Ex: changes to youth justice administration;
focus on alternatives / keeping youth out of
courts
 Factors influencing crime data (2)

Changes in the legal definition of crime

Changes in the population base

Changes in public reporting patterns

Victimization Surveys

A sample of people are asked, via a questionnaire survey,

whether they have been a crime victim

Benefit: captures many crimes not included in UCR data

Useful in identifying categories of people most at risk of

victimization
Lessons learned from victimization surveys
Many more Canadians are victimized than is revealed by official statistics

Fear main reason victims do not report

Reporting more likely when incidents produce financial loss

Some crimes more likely to come to police attention

Some categories of victims more likely to report

Some types of offenders less likely to be reported

 • Not all crimes are captured
(e.g., murders)

• Survey data may lack

reliability

• Survey data may

be skewed

(Picture of Wilma Derksen

holding a photograph of her
daughter Candace)
Limitations of
victimization surveys
 Self-Report Surveys

• Large groups of individuals asked to voluntarily disclose prior offences

• Most commonly administered to students (e.g., secondary school or

university students; but also to prisoners; drug addicts)

• Earliest self-report study: Porterfield (1943)

• Benefits: taps into dark figure of crime; can tell us about the motivations
/ causes of crime; can test theories

• Limitations: Relies on people’s memory & willingness to admit; may

capture more non-serious offences; may omit serious offenders
 Vice talks Weed with Justin Trudeau (watch from minute
Is the system fair to all? 7:55-11:00)
 Individuals are
differentially
Our knowledge of
processed through
crime is limited by
the criminal justice
the information we
system, for a variety
can access.
of reasons, including
socioeconomic status.

Summary
Each of the three However, each
methods of counting provides a different
crime has its aspect of the crime
limitations. picture.