Crime
Answer the following questions: What was the first attempt at collecting crime data? Why is the international crime victim surveys one of the best tools to keep track of crime? What are other sources of keeping track of crime? Which country has the highest/lowest crime rates? How can high/low crime rates be explained?
“Your responses should be well thought-out and consider formulating your own discussion question to get the class to ponder. Do not limit yourself to the textbook; there are a plethora of academic articles you may refer too in our field and other disciplines.”
Texbook: Comparative Criminal Justice Systems (5th edition) by Dammer & Albanese
Crime
The first attempt to collect crime data was done by a Belgium statistician Adolphe Quetelet in 1827 in France. He compared the demographic data with the crime rate to find their similarities. He also compared the high crime rates with the age, gender and who was likely to commit this crime. His result was that most crimes were committed by the uneducated, poor and young males and they occurred in wealthy geographical areas. In 1850 the census that was carried out included the people in prison. It was the first data to provide the country with information on the criminals and the crime nature. The international crime victim survey is the best way to keep crime track because the victim survey data can tell us a great deal of crime across-nationalities that the police administration data cannot. It also focuses on particular cases and individuals this makes this data more reliable to be used for analysis. The data obtained has also a high-level of comparability compared to others. It also provides an opportunity for people to understand the impact of crime and how people are victimized (Roufa, 2019).
Other sources for crime tracking include the uniform crime report. It includes statistics on seven classified crimes as either violent crimes (murder, rape, assault, and robbery) or property crimes (arson, burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft). The national incident-based reporting system provides information about the nature of crimes that occurred in a certain period of time. Characteristics of the victims and the offenders, type and value of property stolen and recovered. It also involves the characteristics of the arrested people in relation to the crime. Venezuela is considered to be the highest ranked crime country with a rate of 83.23 while Cyprus as the lowest with a rate of below 13.26. High/ low crime rate can be explained as the number of crimes that occur in an area against the area population. It’s expressed as 1000 population per year (Tourangeau, 2003).
Reference
National Academic Press. (2016). 1 Introduction: Crime Statistics in the United States | Modernizing Crime Statistics: Report 1: Defining and Classifying Crime. Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/read/23492/chapter/3
Roufa, T. (2019, February 8). An Early History of Crime and Criminology. Retrieved from https://www.thebalancecareers.com/the-history-of-criminology-part-1-974579
Tourangeau, R., & McNeeley, M. (2003). 2. Measuring Crime and Crime Victimization: Methodological Issues | Measurement Problems in Criminal Justice Research: Workshop Summary. Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/read/10581/chapter/3#11
