SOC 1500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: General Social Survey, The Maritimes, Deeper Understanding

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 1500
• Professor: Ryan Broll

Document Summary

Empirical research is the systematic collection of observable data. Criminologists focus on two things: measuring crime in society, understanding the nature of the crime. Criminology research differs from research by someone like a journalist, because of the manner in which the research is conducted: the empirical research conducted by criminologists is always rigorous and systematic. There are four primary methods of measuring crime in canada: official statistics, self-report surveys, victimization surveys, observational studies. Statistics or data that are collected from official agencies. All police departments, no matter the size, are required to submit crime statistics every month to the canadian centre for justice statistics (a branch of statistics canada) Uniform crime reporting (ucr) system: violent crime (homicide, assault, property crime (theft, breaking and entering, other crimes (impaired driving, disturbing the peace) Ucr2 also includes data on victims and accused (gender, relationship between one another, etc. ) Limitations of official statistics include: less serious offences are undercounted.