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Police reports, victimization, and self-report data

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Presentation on theme: "Police reports, victimization, and self-report data"— Presentation transcript:

1 Police reports, victimization, and self-report data
Crime Data Sources Police reports, victimization, and self-report data

2 Sellin’s Dictum “The value of a crime for index purposes decreases as the distance from the crime itself in terms of procedure increases” Thorsten Sellin, 1931

3 Sources of Crime Statistics
Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) National Crime Victimization Surveys (NCVS) Self-Report Data (SRD)

4 Uniform Crime Reports Part 1 Offenses
“Serious illegal acts that occur with sufficient frequency to provide an adequate basis for comparison”

5 Crimes Not Included in the UCR Part 1 Crime Index
Reason: they do not come to the attention of police often enough.

6 Becoming a UCR Crime Statistic
Step 1: Step 2: Police must decide… Step 3: Step 4:

7 Reporting Crimes to the Police
People are MORE likely to report if… People are LESS likely to report if…

8 Officer Discretion Officer discretion influenced by offense and offender characteristics

9 Recording of Crimes by Police
Characteristics of the offense Characteristics of offender Characteristics of the victim

10 Strengths of the UCR National Permits comparisons
Links to other sources

11 Weaknesses of the UCR Street crimes
Reactive crime reporting by citizens Officer discretion Susceptible to political pressure to over or under-report

12 The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)
Conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Census every 6 months, households remain up to 3 years

13 Self-Report Data Unofficial statistics
Gets at the “dark figure” of crime Provides information on causes of crime from offender’s perspective

14 Ethical Issues in Self-Report Studies of Violent Crime
Exchange confidentiality for honesty Ask subjects not to talk about planned violence Yes


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