Official Crime Data Research Articles

Explaining Variation in Crime Victimization Across Nations and within Nations

Cross-national research on crime has been hampered by the lack of comparability of official crime data across nations. The International Crime Victimization Surveys (ICVS) provide crime data that avoid the problems of national variations in defining, reporting, and recording crimes. The research reported in this article uses ICVS data to examine the two major theoretical perspectives on cross-national crime variation-modernization and economic stress. Little support is found for the modernization perspective, and moderate support is found for the economic stress perspective. By examining differences in victimization rates between people below and above the median income within nations, this article also examines whether culture moderates the effect of economic stress on crime victimization. Results indicate that cultural context does influence whether people below or above median income are more frequently crime victims, particularly in Asian nations.

Searching for the Denominator: Problems with Police Traffic Stop Data and an Early Warning System Solution

In response to widespread allegations of racial and ethnic discrimination in traffic stops, a practice that has been labeled “racial profiling,” law enforcement agencies are now collecting data on traffic stops that include the race or ethnicity of drivers. Interpreting these data to determine whether a pattern of race discrimination exists poses enormous difficulties. Specifically, it is not clear what baseline (often referred to as “the denominator”) should be used to assess the racial and ethnic distribution of people stopped. Using the first traffic stop data reports from the San Jose Police Department as a case study, this paper examines baselines that are commonly used or discussed as appropriate. The paper argues that resident population data and/or official crime data are not adequate as baselines. As an alternative, the paper proposes an approach based on police early warning systems.

Community characteristics and in-school criminal victimization

The problem of crime in schools is one that receives a great deal of attention in the media and by the general public. Attempts to understand the problem often make reference to the impact of the neighborhood in which the school is found. Research rarely measures the surrounding environment and its impact on crime and victimization in the school. This article reports on an effort to uncover the influence of the surrounding environment on in-school victimization. Data from surveys of students, census and official crime data for the area, and a windshield survey of the neighborhood were used. The results suggest that the surrounding neighborhood has little impact on in-school victimization. Implications of this result on further research and school policy were examined.

The political and organizational response to gangs: An examination of a “Moral panic” in Nevada

Some social scientists contend that the nature, frequency, and severity of a particular condition or issue are often grossly exaggerated in order to justify further economic or political action or to enhance the legitimacy of various affected organizations. The result can be a “moral panic,” a situation in which public fears and state interventions greatly exceed the objective threat. Using legislative records, media accounts, and official crime data, we examine whether the response to gangs in Las Vegas constituted a moral panic. After reviewing past research, we analyze data to examine the possible discrepancy between the perceived and the actual severity of the gang problem. We also describe factors that lead to the onset and decline of the moral panic in this particular jurisdiction. We conclude with a discussion of the results as they relate to the “threat” hypothesis and to the political and organizational response to youth gangs in other jurisdictions.

Victimization surveys and the accuracy and reliability of official crime data in developing countriesPublications received

The accuracy and reliability of official crime data are always suspect because knowledge of crime depends on the independent decision made by each victim of whether or not to report her/his experiences to the police. Victimization surveys allow estimates of degrees of inaccuracy, but such research is rarely done in developing countries. The little research done on victimization and the police in developing countries shows that levels of nonreporting, reasons for nonreporting, and relations between the public and the police to whom one would report are vastly different among developing countries and between developing and developed countries. One cannot assume, therefore, that the impact of victim behavior on the accuracy and reliability of official data will be similar across countries.

Crime risk in urban neighbourhoods: the use of insurance data to analyse changing spatial forms

Summary The recent British Crime Surveys have confirmed that there are significant spatial variations in the distribution of crime risk. However, it is notoriously difficult to represent the spatial patterns in Britain convincingly, owing to the statistical inadequacy of the official crime data. This paper discusses the use of home contents insurance data as a proxy measure of crime risk, and examines the changing spatial distribution of crime risk in the two Northern conurbations of Merseyside and Greater Manchester. The analysis provides an explicit urban focus in order to establish links between the spatial distribution of crime risk and other patterns of deprivation or inequality in the urban environment. Since insurance data is used as a proxy measure of crime risk in the Department of the Environment's Index of Local Conditions, this analysis serves as an interesting basis for both academic and policy discussion.

Immigrants, Crime, and Criminal Justice in Switzerland

Switzerland is among the European countries with the largest foreign population and the longest immigration tradition. Over many decades, immigrants were not overrepresented in official crime data. More recently, the proportion of non-Swiss offenders increased substantially, but more for nonresident (often illegal) aliens than for legal residents. Victims' accounts of offenders' characteristics confirm the disproportionate crime involvement of immigrants, particularly in violent crime. However, disparity in reporting decisions by victims has not been observed, nor have major disparities in prosecution, sentencing, or time served. Immigrants are not disproportionately victimized, and their attitudes toward police and criminal justice are more positive than those of Swiss respondents. Nonetheless, certain groups have higher offending and victimization rates. Cultural factors, socioeconomic status, and social integration may account for these differences.

Crime and Penal Policy in the Socialist African Republic of Tanzania

Since its independence from Britain in 1961, the nation of Tanzania in East Africa has undergone tremendous sociocultural, political and economic transfornations, the most important of which was the introduction of African socialism or ujamaa, meaning economic self-reliance and sufficiency. It is against this background that this article examines the trends in crime and the penal responses to crime in this African nation. The study is based on official crime data for four offense categories covering the period 1960-1984. The study finds that increases have occurred in homicides, major thefts (robbery, burglary), and minor thefts, whereas arrests for fraudulent practices have decreased significantly. In response to rising crimes, the socialist government enacted the Minimum Sentence Act and required flogging and mandatory imprisonment for certain offenses. In general these penal measures have not had any significant impact on crime.

DEINSTITUTIONALIZATION OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS*

This research investigated the effects of the closing of a juvenile correctional institution. A nonequivalent control group design was used to compare the effects of the closing on placements and criminal behavior for three groups (N = 927) whose institutionalization experiences differed. Official crime data were obtained for all, and interviews were attempted with 752 juveniles. The noninstitutionalized group's recidivism was significantly higher than that of the institutionalized groups both during and after the period of institutionalization. Consistent group differences in offending were observed for crimes against property but not for crimes involving drugs or crimes against persons. These differences were significant but not as pronounced when only the most serious crimes were considered. Implications for the design of effective juvenile correctional strategies are discussed.

REEXAMINING SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY USING CALLS TO THE POLICE AS A MEASURE OF CRIME*

This study examines social disorganization theory using calls to the police during 1980 in 60 Boston neighborhoods. These data, based on complainant reports of crime rather than official police reports, allow further investigation of differences in findings based on victimization data and official crime data. The rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are regressed on poverty, mobility, racial heterogeneity, family disruption, and structural density. Interaction terms for poverty and heterogeneity, poverty and mobility, and mobility and heterogeneity are also explored. Results from this study support findings from recent victimization studies and earlier ecological studies using official counts of crime. Poverty and heterogeneity, along with family disruption and structural density, are found to be important ecological variables for understanding the distribution of crime rates among neighborhoods.

Heroin use, street crime, and the “main hustle”: Implications for the validity of official crime data

This paper explores the basis for a concept known on the street as the “main hustle” with intensive life history interviews with 30 hard core heroin addict‐criminals. Implied in this descriptive te...

Crime and Architectural Style

Historically, social scientists have argued that human behavior is, to a large degree, a response to environmental conditions. Recently, a group of criminologists have posited a direct relationship between certain environmental structures and reported crime rates. Studies exploring this area have pointed to the association between crme rates and highrise residences as support for their position. However, several serious weaknesses exist in this previous research. High-rise structures are generally either in high crime areas or are luxury apartments with guarded entrances. In addition, such research is generally based on official crime data. The present study investigates, through victimization techniques, the experiences of residents of several high- and low-rise structures in a traditionally low crime area: the college campus. In addition, measures of the respondent's sense of community were employed to address the self-policing hypothesis of the environmental design approach. Although causality cannot be inferred from the findings, a positive association was observed between high-rise areas and property crime rates. Furthermore, both of these variables were negatively associated with the respondents' sense of community.

OFFICIAL CRIME DATA: Lag in Recording Time as a Threat to Validity

AbstractOfficial reports are the preferred measure of criminal activity when the goal is to understand whether criminal justice clients are less involved in crime in the posttreatment than in the pretreatment period. However, even this preferred method has drawbacks. Data presented here show that there is a recording time lag in official crime data. At times, the gap between time of crime commission and entry of the offense onto the subject's police record is considerable. Data collected in a short span of time after the treatment period are likely to underestimate crime committed in that period. Consequently, findings of change in the level of involvement in crime should be interpreted with caution.

Persistence of Suburban Violent Crime Rates: An Ecological Analysis

Abstract A lagged endogenous variable structural model of 1970 suburban violent crime rates is constructed and evaluated using a sample of 252 large suburbs for which 1960 and 1970 official crime data were available. It was found that suburban crime rates are persistent, that employment specialization and percent low income affect change in violent crime rates, and that suburban age, density, employment specialization, percent low income, percent Black, and region have substantial indirect effects on 1970 crime rates through earlier areal crime rates. Despite theoretical expectations, population growth and age composition exerted no significant direct or indirect effects on violent crime or changes in violent crime rates.

Crime in the Suburbs

Structural models of suburban violent and property crime rates are developed, utilizing elements of both ecological and criminological theory. The analysis of the models is based on data for 645 suburbs for which official crime data were available. Major findings were: (1) the effects of age composition on crime rates were largely spurious; (2) the per centage of low-income population was a key variable in explaining both violent and property crime rates; (3) percentage of black population had both direct and indirect effects on violent crime rates but no effects on property crime rates; and (4) suburban physical characteristics (size, density, employment/residence ratio, and region) also exerted both direct and indirect effects on crime rates. Implications for the develop ment of ecological and criminological theory are discussed, as are some of the policy implications.

Police Attitudes and Performance

Residency laws are a recurrent controversy in local government. While many of the argu ments are economic, proponents of residency requirements also expect resident employees to have more positive attitudes and greater dedication toward the jurisdiction. In this study of residency, police performance, and officer attitudes, which uses data from a com parative study of departments in the St. Louis metropolitan area, some evidence of a re lationship between residency and performance (measured with citizen survey and official crime and clearance data) is found. But the findings show little support for the expected attitudinal link between residency and performance. The proportion of an officer's col leagues who live in the jurisdiction is more closely related to positive attitudes than is the officer's own residency status. Policy implications are considered.

Crime Rates and Police Behavior: A Test of Two Hypotheses

Two hypotheses concerning the relationship between arrest rates for major and minor offenses are tested using 1971 and 1972 arrest data from Florida munic- ipalities. The results of a regression analysis using lagged variables in a system of difference equations support a interpretation of police behavior and discount a -displacement hypothesis. The data further suggest that the relationship between arrest rates for major and minor offenses achieves stability over time. The use of official police statistics in criminological research continues to be controversial. Although many criminologists maintain that such data are too in- accurate to provide meaningful indexes of criminal activity (Beattie; Cressey; Wilson), researchers still use them on the grounds that they reflect those as- pects of criminal activity which are sufficiently important to be of concern to a community, orthatthey are simplythe best available atthetime (Black; Suther- land and Cressey; Tittle). But some sociologists hold that the issue of the accu- racy of police statistics is irrelevant altogether since such data really reflect police behavior rather than criminal activity (Kitsuse and Cicourel). It is there- fore argued that criminal statistics should be used primarilyto study aspects of police organization. Despite such pleas, few studies have actually employed official crime data in an effort to understand the organizational behavior of police. This paper analyzes the relationship of arrest rates for serious and minor crimes in an effort to evaluate two contrasting hypotheses about police con- duct. One hypothesis, herein labeled the displacement hypothesis, postu- lates an inverse relationship between arrest for serious crimes and arrest for minor crimes. This presumably results from a shifting deployment of police personnel. When serious crimes abound, the police ignore or deemphasize minor crimes. But when serious crimes abate or cannot be effectively man- aged, then police concentrate on minor crimes to justify themselves. The dragnet hypothesis, on the other hand, postulates a positive rela- tionship between serious and minor arrests. According to this argument, when police are constrained by legal rules and other contingencies they must rely largely on arrests for minor crimes as a means of managing serious offenses. Since it is easierto establish probable cause for minor crimes, and since minor offenses are more subjectto proactive police work, suspicious individuals are arrested on minor charges in the expectation that the process will turn up evi- dence enabling police to make arrests for major offenses.