SOC209H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Uniform Crime Reports
Document Summary
Problems with understanding crime: hidden - people hide their acts of crime so they don"t get punished (hard to catch criminals) Crime rates - police reported incidents crime rate= criminal incidents/total population x 100,000. The crime funnel actual level of crime= total number of crimes. 5% of cases are brought to court: uniform crime reports use statistics and trends to assess crime. Indirect measures: fear of crime and its effects, anxiety, behavioural change. Limitations people are not going to report serious crimes sampling misses serious offenders. Crime in the media prominent focuses more on serious violent crime: more serious than what data would indicate. Criminals in the media: most criminals are different, pathology, free choice archetypes: professional, pillar, predator (serial killer) crime dissociated from social problems focus on black people. Criminal justice system in the media front end: enforcement, detection, investigation support and criticism for cjs actors judges and criminal justice system is looked at positively.
