National Crime Statistics Research Articles

Examining the impact of job location on violent crime: the study of South African metropolitan areas

ABSTRACT The physical separation of people from economic activities creates spatial disparities, fragmentation, and unequal access to opportunities. Contemporary South Africa displays spatially divided communities. Affluent locations are socio-economically integrated with fewer crime activities, while poor communities are disintegrated from economic activities with high crime occurrences. The study explores the relationship between spatial mismatch and violent crime in South African metropolitan areas. The study used regression modelling and choropleth mapping to analyse and present the relation. Data used were acquired from Stats SA, CSIR, and SAPS National Crime Statistics. The findings revealed that areas located closer to jobs are associated with low levels of violent crime. In contrast, poor areas are located away from job opportunities and have high levels of violent crime. The study concludes that spatial mismatch determines the level of violent crime in South African metros.

A White Paper on National, Military, and College Reports on Prosecution of Sexual Assaults and Victims’ Rights

In response to recent calls for major reforms to the American military justice system, which are apparently based on continuing Congressional concerns about sexual assaults in the military, the authors present statistical data on sexual assaults from a number of sources: national crime statistics; military crime statistics; crime statistics from several states, and statistics from a university. The authors also present information on the tremendous strides that have been made in recent years to protect the rights of military victims of sexual assault, noting that some of those rights are not found in federal or state criminal justice systems. Finally, the authors conclude that the rate of sexual assaults in the military is lower than for other civilian jurisdictions. Military victims report offenses at a higher rate than the jurisdictions examined.

Rural farmers' perspectives on stock theft: police crime statistics

Rural farmers are not only facing challenges of severe drought blamed on the El Nino weather pattern, but the stock theft as well. The South African Police’s annual crime statistics report and surveys indicates that rural livestock farmers are mostly affected by stock theft in South Africa. The costs paid by these farmers to enhance security in the environs of their livestock roughly precede the financial planning meant for production. However, the research on the extent, economic impact, dark figures and problem areas of stock theft in rural areas remain limited. The National Crime Statistics about stock theft as administered and published by the South African Police Service remains the key focus of this paper. The responses of selected farmers indicate that there is no single solution tailor-made to fight against this phenomenon. The nature of this scourge extremely manifests itself in rural areas because it is not fully tackled by authorities. This paper draws from the detailed statistics reports of stock theft. Keywords: Crime Statistics, Livestock, Rural farmers, Police Service, Stock theft, Extension implication

Crime Trends and the Elasticity of Evil: Has a Broadening View of Violence Affected Our Statistical Indicators?

Macro-social theories posit that societies become more civil as they modernize. An open question is whether these changes affect major social indicators of crime. To produce level and change estimates, national data collection systems employ safeguards to promote stability. Cultural changes, though, might affect these systems in more subtle ways by affecting what citizens view as criminal violence and how these behaviors are recounted in crime surveys and reported to police. Three subclasses of violence appear most susceptible: rape and sexual assault, domestic violence, and lesser forms of violence such as verbal threats. Findings are strongest that changing cultural definitions have affected official statistics for domestic violence. Rape and sexual assault also have shown changes in the willingness of victims to report to the police. Evidence does not indicate that the cultural definition of lesser violence has changed in a way that has affected trends in official statistics. Estimating change over time is a key reason statistical systems employ safeguards to remove shifting views of violence. These safeguards may limit an accurate view of victimization risk and exposure. Balancing the need for stability with a desire to capture emerging crimes and risks requires developing careful systematic processes for reviewing and updating national crime statistics.

African Americans and criminal justice: an encyclopedia

Does justice exist for Blacks in America? This comprehensive compilation of essays documents the historical and contemporary impact of the law and criminal justice system on people of African ancestry in the United States. African Americans and Criminal Justice: An Encyclopedia comprises descriptive essays documenting the ways in which people of African descent have been victimized by oppressive laws enacted by local, state, and federal authorities in the United States. The entries also describe how Blacks became disproportionately represented in national crime statistics, largely through their efforts to resist legalized oppression in early American history, and present biographies of famous and infamous Black criminal suspects and victims throughout early American history and in contemporary times. Providing coverage of law and criminal justice practices from the precolonial period, including the introduction of African slaves, up to practices in modern-day America, this encyclopedia presents a frank and comprehensive view of how Americans of African descent have come to be viewed as synonymous with criminality. This book represents an essential learning resource for all American citizens, regardless of race or age. 120 A-Z entries on race and criminal justice and famous or infamous African American crime perpetrators or victims Contributions from more than 50 distinguished scholars from many criminal justice/criminology academic programs across the country An index of key persons, events, and legislation

A two step clustering algorithm as applied to crime data of South Africa

This study applied a TwoStep cluster analysis on the 29 serious crimes reported at 1119 police stations across South Africa for the 2009/2010 financial year. Due to this high number of variables and observations, it becomes difficult to apply some statistical methods without firstly using others as precursors. Classical methods have also been found to be inefficient as they do not have the ability to handle large datasets and mixture of variables. The AIC and BIC automatically identified the three clusters of crimes. The findings may guide authorities when developing interventions tailored to better meet the needs of individual cluster of crimes. Existing plans may also be enhanced to the advantage of residents. More emphasise may be placed on crimes that pose a serious threat. The SAPS may use these findings when reporting on national crime statistics. For future studies, discriminant analysis can be applied to check the clusters’ validity

사람들이 생각하는 강간 범죄자의 표상: 실제 국내 강간 범죄자와의 비교를 중심으로

We often find that we, as a social group, share stereotypes of criminals. For the present study we investigated the stereotypes of rapists, and examined if they match their characteristics on the national crime statistics in Korea. Collecting data from 82 college students and 91 police officers, we compared stereotypes about rapists with the characteristics of those reported on the national crime statistics. As a result, we found that both college students and police officers have distorted stereotypes of rapists which are not consistent with their characteristics. More specifically, both college students and police officers believed that rapists came from broken families and that they were likely to have more previous criminal convictions than they actually did. In addition, both college students and police officers believed that rapists tended to recidivate within a short period of time, e.g. 1-3 months, which is much shorter than the time that actually took for them to recidivate. Finally, suggestions for future research were made.

Immigration, diversity and crime: an analysis of Belgian national crime statistics, 2001-6

In this article we investigate the assumed relationship between immigrant concentrations and crime at the community level in Belgium for the period 2001—6. Multivariate analysis shows that unemployment levels have a very strong effect on crime, thus rendering the ethnic composition of the community non-significant. We distinguished various groups depending on ethnic origins. Controls include the concentration of migrants and the number of incoming immigrants. Our conclusion is that deprivation (and especially unemployment) is more important than direct immigration effects in explaining community-level crime rates. We end with some theoretical and policy considerations regarding the relation between ethnic diversity and crime.

REASSESSING TRENDS IN BLACK VIOLENT CRIME, 1980-2008: SORTING OUT THE “HISPANIC EFFECT” IN UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS ARRESTS, NATIONAL CRIME VICTIMIZATION SURVEY OFFENDER ESTIMATES, AND U.S. PRISONER COUNTS*

Recent studies suggest a decline in the relative Black effect on violent crime in recent decades and interpret this decline as resulting from greater upward mobility among African Americans during the past several decades. However, other assessments of racial stratification in American society suggest at least as much durability as change in Black social mobility since the 1980s. Our goal is to assess how patterns of racial disparity in violent crime and incarceration have changed from 1980 to 2008. We argue that prior studies showing a shrinking Black share of violent crime might be in error because of reliance on White and Black national crime statistics that are confounded with Hispanic offenders, whose numbers have been increasing rapidly and whose violence rates are higher than that of Whites but lower than that of Blacks. Using 1980–2008 California and New York arrest data to adjust for this “Hispanic effect” in national Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data, we assess whether the observed national decline in racial disparities in violent crime is an artifact of the growth in Hispanic populations and offenders. Results suggest that little overall change has occurred in the Black share of violent offending in both UCR and NCVS estimates during the last 30 years. In addition, racial imbalances in arrest versus incarceration levels across the index violent crimes are both small and comparably sized across the study period. We conclude by discussing the consistency of these findings with trends in economic and social integration of Blacks in American society during the past 50 years.

Women, psychosis and violence

Psychosis confers a disproportionate risk of violence on women compared with men, but such women barely affect national crime statistics anywhere. Much research in the field does not include women at all. In our literature review, we found that information about women, psychosis and violence generally had to be extracted from studies including women but focussing on men; not uncommonly analyses ‘controlled for gender’ rather than treating it as interesting in itself. A tendency for women to be older than men at onset of psychosis may not apply to those who become violent, but women with psychosis do seem to start offending later and desist sooner. Rates of seriously adverse childhood experiences are similar between women and men with psychosis, except for sexual abuse—more frequently reported by the women. Some evidence of special patterns for women in the nature of psychosis and violence relationships requires more exploration, as do treatment questions. With so few women in any one service, multi-centre co-operation in research with them will be essential.

Social Constructionism and Criminology: Traditions, Problems and Possibilities

There will be disagreement and debate among academicians, governmental officials, law enforcement, the media, and the general public regarding the perspective from which one should view the events of September 11. Some will argue that they were an act of war; others will say they are a local crime, an international conspiracy, terrorism in its classical meaning, or a myriad of other possibilities.1 The FBI classifies these deaths as homicides, but treats them and the victims, which total 3,047, in a special report separately from the statistical presentation of ‘ordinary’ homicides, inter alia by reference to the fact that their number would distort the annual statistics (with an increase of approximately 20%). In the case of the bomb attack in Oklahoma City in 1995, the FBI chose to include the 168 deaths in the routine statistics of homicides (involving an increase of slightly under 1%). Conklin (2003:10) contends that the exclusion of the 9/11 deaths from the national crime statistics indicates that the FBI nonetheless regards them as the result of an act of war, rather than as cases of ‘local crime’. Federal Bureau of Investigation 2002:302 In this article it is stressed that social constructionism is a heterogeneous perspective. It can be applied as an alternative programme with far‐reaching meta‐theoretical implications, but also as an approach with more limited and pragmatic orientations. Historically, its roots can be traced to two divergent philosophical traditions—an interpretive and a structuralist one. Thus many social constructionist features exist for criminology, like social sciences in general, to evaluate and build on. It is argued that current social constructionism offers possible answers to questions at the forefront of the criminological research agenda. Central is the timeless issue of what constitutes a crime, as well as other urgent problems posed by empirical social conditions and by the intra‐scientific state of affairs. However, for this potential to be realized, social constructionism must develop in an integrative direction and begin to present more of an established voice than rebellious iconoclasm.

Crime and Punishment in Australia, 1980-2000

Over the twenty years from 1980 to 2000, Australia experienced sustained increases in the incidence of robbery, serious assault, and rape; declines in motor vehicle theft; and stability in homicide and burglary. Persons convicted of homicide, serious assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft received longer sentences. The exceptions were robbery and rape. Limited access to uniform national crime statistics and time-series data on crime-related socioeconomic factors makes explaining these trends difficult. Differences in the responses of states and territories to crime and lack of uniform court and prison statistics make identification of the factors underlying the risk of offending complicated. The risk of punishment seems to be negatively associated with crime rates, but trying to explain this apparent relationship is adventurous. Development of uniform and integrated national crime statistics systems remains a priority.

Categorizing September 11

This article discusses the problems of categorizing and coding the casualties associated with the September 11, 2001 attack. How the losses of lives are categorized the loss of lives is a vital issue, especially for the Federal Bureau of investigation (FBI). The FBI is the U.S. government agency responsible for the collection and production of national crime statistics. Each year, the FBI releases the Uniform Crime Report, which contains data on the past year's criminal activity in the United States. One consequence that needs to be taken into consideration is that the method of classifying the casualties could have a tremendous impact on the annual crime rate. To allow for such casualties to be categorized as acts of terrorism, it is first necessary to define this term. This, too, is a challenge, as there is little agreement as to how terrorism is defined. The FBI has two categories, domestic and international. Because the perpetrators of the September 11 incidents have been identified as foreign nationals, should the deaths be categorized as international-based terrorist acts? Terrorism is defined as premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience. International terrorism means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country..

Social Production of Crime Data: A Critical Examination of Chinese Crime Statistics

The primary focus of this article is a critical examination of Chinese crime statistics. The problems related to the production as well as the comparative use of Chinese national crime statistics are tackled by means of an organizing framework that includes macro-level characteristics of Chinese society, factors that affect the quality and quantity of Chinese crime statistics, and specific problems related to the comparative use of Chinese crime statistics. It is argued that Chinese crime statistics are suspect as a measure of criminal misconduct, more so than in Western countries, but that they nevertheless can be quite useful when applied as a measure of organizational processes reflecting social control.

Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration

Members of some disadvantaged minority groups in every Western country are disproportionately likely to be arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for violent, property, and drug crimes. This is true whether the minority groups are members of different "racial" groups from the majority population, for example, blacks or Afro-Caribbeans in Canada, England, or the United States, or of different ethnic backgrounds, for example, North African Arabs in France or the Netherlands, orirrespective of race or ethnicity-are recent migrants from other countries, for example, Yugoslavs or Eastern Europeans in Germany and Finns in Sweden. Important social policy dilemmas that are seen in individual countries to be uniquely their own, such as race relations in the United States or assimilation of Maghreb-derived guest workers in France or the experience of Aborigines in Australia, are not unique at all but are instead variations on common themes of social structure

Crime, Drugs, and Suicide in the Scandinavian Countries Since 1950

This chapter contains a description of crimes and sanctions, alcohol and narcotics abuse, and suicide in the Scandinavian countries since the 1950s. Men such as Adolphe Quetelet and Andre-Michel Guerry in that period laid the foundation for the tradition of moral statistics, whereupon national crime statistics were started in several Western nations. The analysis of property crimes will be limited to theft, which, along with traffic crimes, is by far the most commonly reported crime. The finding of a lack of increase is also supported by more qualified measures of drug use, such as use of drugs in the past month or injection of drugs. Swedish policy became one of controlling drugs on the streets and in Finland a number of psychoactive substances were criminalized. The fall in the Swedish suicide rate since 1971 is probably affected by the introduction of the category “controversial cases” into the WHO causes-of-death classification.

The scope of rape: incidence and prevalence of sexual aggression and victimization in a national sample of higher education students.

Because of inadequacies in the methods used to measure sexual assault, national crime statistics, criminal victimization studies, convictions, or incarceration rates fail to reflect the true scope of rape. Studies that have avoided the limitations of these methods have revealed very high rates of overt rape and lesser degrees of sexual aggression. The goal of the present study was to extend previous work to a national basis. The Sexual Experiences Survey was administered to a national sample of 6,159 women and men enrolled in 32 institutions representative of the diversity of higher education settings across the United States. Women's reports of experiencing and men's reports of perpetrating rape, attempted rape, sexual coercion, and sexual contact were obtained, including both the rates of prevalence since age 14 and of incidence during the previous year. The findings support published assertions of high rates of rape and other forms of sexual aggression among large normal populations. Although the results are limited in generalizabil ity to postsecondary students, this group represents 26% of all persons aged 18-24 in the United States. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines rape as carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her consent and reports that 87,340 such offenses occurred in 1985 (FBI, 1986). However, these figures greatly underestimate the true scope of rape because they are based only on instances reported to police. Government estimates suggest that for every rape reported, 3-10 rapes are committed but not reported (Law Enforcement Assistance Administration [LEAA], 1975). Likewise, it is difficult to obtain realistic estimates of the number of men who perpetrate rape because only a fraction of reported rapes eventually result in conviction (Clark & Lewis, 1977). Victimization studies, such as the annual National Crime Survey (NCS), are the major avenue through which the full extent of the crime is estimated (e.g., Bureau of Justice Statistics [BJS], 1984). In these studies, the residents of a standard sampling area are asked to indicate those crimes of which they or anyone else in their household have been victims during the previous 6 months. These rates are then compared with official crime statistics for the area and the rate of unreported crime is esti

The FBI'S Biased Sampling

"The FBI'S Biased Sampling." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 29(1), pp. 38–42 Additional informationNotes on contributorsHans ZeiselA number of experts, including the author, believe that the Federal Bureau of Investigation should turn the job of keeping national crime statistics over to an independent agency in the Justice Department. In this analysis of the Bureau's recordkeeping practices, Professor Zeisel reveals that the Bureau has been using a biased statistical sample to show that the federal courts can be blamed for a high degree of criminal recidivism. Hans Zeisel is professor of law and sociology at The University of Chicago.