Chapter 4

Counting Crime

Copyright © 2020 by Nelson Educati 4-1

on Ltd.
 Learning Objectives
• Understand how ethics emerged in University research and protect subjects
• Describe how the administrative records collected in the criminal justice system
are turned into statistics about crime and the characteristics of offenders and
victims.
• Understand the problems of reliability and validity associated with measures of
crime and offenders.
• Understand the system that produces Canadian crime and criminal justice
statistics.
• Describe the trends in Canadian crime rates over the past five decades.
• Describe the strengths and weaknesses of victimization and self-reported
criminality surveys, and understand how these two methods enhance our
understanding of the problem of crime in Canada
• Describe and understand the strengths and limitations of qualitative research
methods
 Research in Criminology
• How can we obtain data about the amount
and nature of crime in a society?
• What are some of the challenges associated
with researching crime
• Do the statistics collected count what they
purport to count (validity)?
• What is the difference between qualitative
and quantitative research methods
 Ethics in Research
• When and where does ETHICS find
expression?

• What research requires ethical clearance?

– Involving human subjects

– Why?....
 History of Ethics
 What are ethics

 Nuremburg

 military tribunal opened criminal proceedings against 23 leading

German physicians

 Nuremburg Code was established in 1948, stating that "The (a)

voluntary (b) consent of the human subject is absolutely
essential," making it clear that subjects should give consent and
that the benefits of research must outweigh the risks.

 Basis of university ethics

 10 standards of the Nuremburg Code
• Volunteers freely consent to participate
• Researchers fully inform volunteers concerning the study
• Risks associated with the study are reduced where possible
• Researchers are responsible for protecting participants against remote
harms
• Participants can withdraw from the study at any time
• Qualified researchers conduct the study
• Cessation of the study if adverse effects emerge
• Society should benefit from study findings
• Research on humans, should be based on previous animal or other
previous work
• A research study should never begin if there is a reason to believe that
death or injury may result
 Declaration of Helsinki
• In 1964, the World Medical Association established
recommendations guiding research involving human
subjects.
• Issues addressed:
– Research protocols should be reviewed by an independent
committee prior to initiation
– Informed consent from research participants is necessary
– Research should be conducted by medically/scientifically
qualified individuals
– Risks should not exceed benefits
 Ethics in Research
Researchers must (usually) ensure:
– Anonymity?
– Confidentiality
– research causes no undue harm to participants
– informed consent of participants
– have not disguised the true nature/purpose of
the research (manipulation)
 Challenges of Researching Crime
The crime funnel affects police-recorded crime rate.
• Police cannot record unreported crime or crime of which
they are unaware.
• The further into the CJS you go, the more obvious it
becomes that you are collecting statistics on how the CJS
operates (that is, that you are counting official decisions):
– For example, data on the prison population provide valid
indicators of one way that a society responds to crime, but are
not a valid measure of the scope and nature of crime
How can we get around the problems
associated with the crime funnel
 How much crime
• Counting crime is problematic, because much
of it is committed in secret or goes
unreported.
• The major problem of crime statistics is the
dark figure of crime:
– crime that remains unreported, unrecorded,
largely unknown
Official Statistics – Canadian Uniform Crime
Reports
• The goal of Uniform Crime Reports is to
provide uniform and comparable national
statistics.
• Benefits because it is based on rates, not raw or
total numbers
– Allows for comparisons between jurisdictions or over
time, and
– Is not influenced by differences in population size
between jurisdictions, or changes in population size in
one jurisdiction.
Is the Crime Rate Increasing or Decreasing
• Discussion Question
• Does the UCR survey provide us with an
accurate count of crime, or at least a
reasonable indicator of crime and crime
trends in Canada? Can official (UCR) statistics
ever tell us about total crime?
What factors might influence the crime rate
 Three Factors…
• Economy
• Administrative Changes
• Demographic Changes
How might we get a better picture of the
amount of crime in Canadian Society
 How might we get a better picture of the
amount AND type of crime in Canadian Society

• Victimization Studies
• Self Report Studies
• Participant and Non Participant Observation
Why don’t people report crime to the police?
 Why People Do Not Report their
Victimization
 too minor
 police won’t do anything
 inconvenient
 reported to another official
 personal matter
 protecting offender
 Revenge
 Not sure if the behavior is criminal
What crime(s) are most likely to be
reported
 What have we learned from victimization
studies
• Victimization surveys cannot capture the entire
“dark” figure missed by the UCR, but
victimization data show that many more
Canadians are victimized than is revealed by
official statistics
• Some categories of offenders (for example, family
members) are less likely to be reported.
• Victimization surveys go beyond merely counting crime.
– They provide data on costs of victimization, financial losses, physical
injuries, and fear.
– Data allow us to explore various dimensions of seriousness.
What age group is most at risk for violent
crime
What age group is most at risk for violent
crime
 VICTIMIZATION SURVEYS
General Social Survey
• One of the largest victimization surveys in Canada
• Key findings

•Of all crimes measured by the 2019 General Social Survey (GSS) on Canadians’
Safety, fraud is the most common. In 2019, 2.5 million people reported being the
victim of fraud in the previous 12 months, or 7.8% of the Canadian population aged
15 and older.
•In the five years preceding the survey, 17% of the population experienced at least
one fraud. The proportion was highest in Alberta (22%), whereas people living in
Nunavut (8.6%), New Brunswick (13%), Newfoundland and Labrador (13%), Nova
Scotia (14%) and Quebec (14%) were the least likely to have experienced fraud.
•The financial losses reported by all victims of fraud in the five years preceding the
GSS were over $16 billion. Approximately one-quarter of victims of fraud lost at
least $1,000.

•Why is fraud so widespread when crime rates for most other areas are declining
 Why is Fraud so widespread

Why
• new technologies
• widespread use of the Internet
• have changed the way we interact, consume and work.
• changes have disrupted the way crime manifests itself,
with technologies providing criminals with new
opportunities

LIMITATIONS
• always tell the truth?
• cannot measure some crimes (homicide)
• very costly
Other Methods
 Self Report
• Rather than relying on police data, why not just ask
criminals what they do and how often they do it?
– The people who know the most about crime are those
who break the law.
• The most common self-report studies are
administered among a specific population (for
example, secondary school students).
– Students are asked questions about the whether they have
committed a crime, the nature of the crime, and when
Limitations
 Limitations
Limitations
• Those who are typically law abiding are more likely
to report their occasional infractions compared to
more serious and chronic offenders.
• Respondents tend to report minor infractions and
downplay more serious infractions.
• Some demographic groups are more apt to
underreport criminal behaviour.
• It is often difficult to survey serious, chronic
offenders.
 Discussion Question
• Compare and contrast the three dominant
crime data collection techniques discussed.
Which is best?
• What Criminal Justice Statistics are the more
valid and reliable
 Look to Contexts…
Ethnography and Participant Observation

 Participant versus Non-Participant observation

 Grounded Theory ~ deduction vs. induction
 The Ethnographic Process ~ Becoming an Observer
 Finding a sight to do research
 Gaining Access
 Expertise (Atchinson)
 Falling in (Patricia Adler)
 Developing trust
 finding a gate keeper
• Introduce researcher to situations
• Introduce researcher to people
• Cross check information
• Provide the skills to fit in
– i.e. language/vocabulary

• Making Notes?
 In-Depth Interviews
• Open Ended Questions

• Finding a sample

• Advantages and Limitations

 Advantages/Disadvantages of Qualitative
Methods
 Advantages:
 Yields deeper, more pithy findings
 Get at secretive groups who may not have come to police
attention

 Disadvantages:
 Small sample size
 Very time consuming (transcribing, relationships)
 Lacks generalizability
 Occasionally violence may be used against researcher