LAWS 3501 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Correlation Does Not Imply Causation, Mpra Language, Socioeconomic Status
Document Summary
Learning objectives: defining crime, measuring crime, prevalence rates, incidence rates, per capita crime rates, ways of measuring crime, official statistics, victim surveys, self-reports, problems with measuring crime, measuring crime correlates, pearson correlations, problems with measuring correlates. Defining crime: criminal behaviour refers to acts that are prohibited under the law and render the actor subject to intervention by justice professionals, crimes are socially constructed. Measuring crime: most common measures are aggregated crime rates (at the level of large areas consisting of populations of people) Three types of crime rates that tend to be talked about in this course; prevalence rates, incidence rates, per capita crime rates. Ways of measuring crime: official statistics, victim surveys. The reduction in numbers as we travel through the criminal justice system: problem: the hierarchy issue, only the most serious crime counts. Problems with victim surveys: problem: still some underreporting, domestic assaults, minor theft, rape.
