Deck 4: Counting Crime

Question 1

Compared to police counts of crime,which of the following can be said of correctional counts?

A) They are more valid and reliable.
B) They are more reliable but less valid.
C) They are more valid but less reliable.
D) They are less valid and less reliable.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which of the following pairs of terms best describes the nature of crime rate statistics across the criminal justice system from crime detection to incarceration?

A) The information is neither a reliable nor a valid measure of crime rate.
B) The information is a valid but not a reliable measure of crime rate.
C) The information is a reliable but not a valid measure of crime rate.
D) The information provides both a reliable and a valid measure of crime rate.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

According to the textbook,statistical facts without theory are best classified as which of the following?

A) ideology
B) numerology
C) penology
D) scatology

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Which of the following is the result of taking police-reported crimes,dividing this figure by the size of the national population,and then multiplying it by 100,000?

A) crime rate
B) victimization rate
C) self-report crime rate
D) adult crime offender rate

Question 5

Which of the following scenarios best reflects Kaplan's "law of the hammer"?

A) Police-reported crime data continue to be used by social scientists,despite knowledge of their weaknesses.
B) Assaults and other violent crimes are underreported in crime statistics.
C) "Hard" (quantitative)measures of crime are more accurate than "soft" (qualitative)measures.
D) Crime resists measurement.

Question 6

An offender goes on a break-and-enter spree and hits six houses in one evening.Which of the following refers to the question of whether one or six offences should be included in the official crime rate?

A) counting procedures
B) level of aggregation
C) data elements
D) unit of count

Question 7

Which of the following terms best describe when governments introduce tough-on-crime legislation despite the fact that statistics show the crime rate is falling?

A) ideology
B) theory
C) numerology
D) scatology

Question 8

Which of the following criminal justice agencies completes a report that then becomes part of the Uniform Crime Reporting system?

A) police
B) courts
C) corrections
D) Canadian Centre for Justice statistics

Question 9

According to the textbook which of the following most accurately accounts for the statistics indicating an overall increase in the average daily count of adults in custody in Canada between 1978 and 2013?

A) an increase in the crime rate in Canada
B) an increase in harsher sentencing practices
C) an increase in tough-on-crime legislation
D) an increase in the Canadian population

Question 10

Which of the following statements best describes the so-called "crime funnel"?

A) Over time the number of violent offences has decreased significantly.
B) Only some of those who commit crimes as teenagers continue to do so as adults.
C) Very few offenders are ever released back into society after they are processed by the judicial system.
D) Only a portion of the crimes detected by police make their way through the system to incarceration.

Question 11

Polsky (1967)argued that our understanding of crime would never be significantly advanced if we relied solely on statistical data.To further our understanding of crime,which of the following would fit with the methods Polsky advocated we use?

A) official data collected by the RCMP
B) police statistics gathered across communities
C) time in the community interacting with offenders on parole
D) anonymous surveys counting crime rates

Question 12

Which of the following refers to how criminal justice data are to be combined?

A) data elements
B) units of count
C) levels of aggregation
D) counting procedure

Question 13

Which of the following refers to what,specifically,is to be collected to compile criminal justice statistics?

A) counting procedures
B) data elements
C) units of count
D) levels of aggregation

Question 14

Which of the following best describes the differences between a criminal justice administrative record and statistical data?

A) Administrative records are concerned with individual cases while statistics are aggregated data.
B) Administrative records provide information for policies and planning while statistics are geared toward making decisions about individual cases.
C) Administrative records are gathered by police services while statistics are generated at the court level.
D) Administrative records are more reliable measures of crime rates than statistical data.

Question 15

Which of the following terms refers to the consistency of research results over time?

A) validity
B) stability
C) reliability
D) methodology

Question 16

Which of the following is the most commonly used source of data for measuring crime in Canada?

A) police-reported data
B) correctional data
C) court data
D) census data

Question 17

What is the name of the agency within Statistics Canada that produces much of the criminal justice statistical information in Canada?

A) the National Centre for Justice Statistics
B) the Canadian Centre for Crime and Justice Statistics
C) the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
D) the National Centre for Crime Statistics

Question 18

In the 1960s and 1970s,what did social scientists begin to suggest regarding official records of crime?

A) They were basically good measures.
B) They were systematically biased.
C) They were poor measures of how the criminal justice system works to create crime.
D) They only small parts of the country.

Question 19

According to Figure 4.2 in your textbook,which of the following best represents the trend in the average daily count of adults in custody in Canada between 1978 and 2013?

A) There was an overall decrease in the average daily count of adults in custody.
B) There was an overall increase in the average daily count of adults in custody.
C) The average daily count of adults in custody stayed the same.
D) There was a rapid increase and then a rapid decrease in the average daily count of adults in custody.

Question 20

What information does a statistical count of prison populations provide?

A) how much crime a society is experiencing
B) how a society responds to crime
C) the murder rates for a society at a given time
D) the nature of judicial discretion in a society

Question 21

In the UCR system,the crime rate is calculated using which of the following?

A) Unfounded incidents.
B) Unfounded incidents plus incidents reported to the police.
C) Incidents reported to the police.
D) Incidents reported to the police minus unfounded incidents.

Question 22

Under the seriousness rule of the UCR,what happens if there are several crimes committed in one incident?

A) Only the most serious crime is counted.
B) Every crime is counted no matter how trivial.
C) Only the least serious crime is counted.
D) Only the indictable crimes are counted.

Question 23

What information does a victimization survey gather?

A) personal stories of crimes committed for which they were not caught
B) experiences that friends or family members have had as victims of crime
C) personal experiences of victimization and fear of crime
D) predictions about future trends in crime rate

Question 24

Which of the following is a limitation of victimization surveys?

A) Definitions of victimization vary across time.
B) Crimes designed to keep victims unaware they have been victimized cannot be captured accurately in victimization surveys.
C) Survey data may lack reliability; they depend on language barriers,time constraints,and geography.
D) Victimization surveys are influenced by how police collect,maintain,and report the data.

Question 25

The "dark figure of crime" refers to which of the following?

A) the total number of all violent offences combined
B) the amount of crime that is unreported or unknown
C) the statistical weighting of violent offences for the crime severity index
D) the statistics on organized crime in Canada

Question 26

Which of the following best represents the difference between the UCR1 and UCR2 systems?

A) UCR1 collects summary data for separate criminal offences while UCR2 uses a weighting system to indicate more serious offences.
B) UCR1 collects summary data for separate criminal offences while UCR2 collects more detailed information on each incident,the victims,and the accused persons.
C) UCR1 collects data on federal criminal offences while UCR2 collects data on both federal and provincial criminal offences.
D) UCR1 follows the seriousness rule while the UCR2 survey does not.

Question 27

Which of the following best represents why crime rate statistics are cited more frequently than the actual number of crimes experienced by a jurisdiction?

A) The crime rate is more accurate than the actual number of crimes.
B) The crime rate is easier to calculate than the actual number of crimes.
C) The crime rate allows for a comparison between different cities and over time.
D) The crime rate provides a better reflection of the social distribution of crime compared to the statistics on the actual number of crimes.

Question 28

Which of the following factors most consistently impacts the UCR data?

A) the number of police officers hired in a given year
B) the number of days a police officer works in a week
C) police discretion and public pressure to crack down on certain crimes
D) the number of schools in a police reporting district

Question 29

Which of the following makes up the statistics in the Uniform Crime Reports?

A) police-reported data
B) victimization surveys
C) self-report surveys
D) criminal court surveys

Question 30

Despite the challenges with self-report studies,there are some benefits to conducting them.Which of the following is one such benefit?

A) they outline information about crime victims not otherwise available
B) they provide information about the motivation and techniques of offenders
C) they allow police services to decrease resources in certain areas
D) they provide information about where the next criminal event is likely to happen

Question 31

Two people assault three victims during the same incident.Under the UCR system,how many offences will be recorded?

A) one
B) two
C) three
D) six

Question 32

According to the text,what impact does the seriousness rule have when offences are recorded in the Canadian Uniform Crime Reporting system?

A) It inflates the total crime count and inflates serious crime as a proportion of the total.
B) It inflates the total crime count but deflates serious crime as a proportion of the total.
C) It deflates the total crime count and deflates serious crime as a proportion of the total.
D) It deflates the total crime count and inflates serious crime as a proportion of the total.

Question 33

A person steals money from a victim,assaults the victim,locks the victim in a car trunk and drives him to a remote field,and finally kills the victim,all during the same incident.Which of these crimes actually is counted in the UCR system?

A) the theft
B) the assault
C) the kidnapping
D) the homicide

Question 34

How can a social movement such as #MeToo impact crime statistics?

A) It can lead to different reporting rates as well as different crime recording practices.
B) It can create a distraction from the root causes of crime.
C) It can make crime statistics more difficult to track.
D) It is not likely that such a movement will have any impact on crime statistics in most communities.

Question 35

Drug offences declined in 2016.How can this trend be explained?

A) It is likely a statistical anomaly.
B) Recreational drug use has become less morally acceptable in Canada.
C) Fewer youth report using drugs than in the previous year.
D) Cultural shifts and legislative changes impact police discretion.

Question 36

Which of the following statements best reflects the impact of cybercrime on crime statistics?

A) It is much easier to track than traditional offline crimes.
B) It is likely underreported and may be replacing some offline crimes.
C) It provides a better picture of victim characteristics given data mining techniques available.
D) It is mainly focused on teenagers as the victims.

Question 37

According to the 2014 General Social Survey,which group reports the highest rate of violent victimization?

A) 20- to 24-year-olds
B) 10- to 15-year-olds
C) 80- to 85-year-olds
D) 45- to 55-year-olds

Question 38

Which of the following statements about crime counts is correct?

A) Statistical descriptions of the prison population are the least valid indicators of how the criminal justice system responds to crime.
B) Counts of convictions are valid reflections of the causes of criminal behaviour.
C) As the reliability of a statistical measure increases,its validity as a count of crime also increases.
D) In general,the official (UCR)crime rate statistics underestimate the actual level of crime.

Question 39

How often are victimization surveys conducted as part of Canada's General Social Survey?

A) every 2 years
B) every year
C) every 10 years
D) every 5 years

Question 40

The term "gross counts of crime" refers to which of the following?

A) Criminal Code violations only
B) Criminal Code violations and violations of other federal statutes
C) Criminal Code violations and violations of other federal,provincial,and municipal statutes and bylaws
D) Criminal Code violations and violations of other federal and provincial statutes

Question 41

In the Canadian UCR system,thefts and attempted thefts are recorded under the same category.

Question 42

Correctional statistics are the most accurate taken within the criminal justice system.

Question 43

In research,reliability refers to the consistency of results over time.

Question 44

Fortunately,it is easy to combine and compare police statistics since they are all using the same formula for recording data.

Question 45

The dark figure of crime refers to violent personal crime such as murder and sexual assault.

Question 46

Data elements describe how data are to be combined.

Question 47

UCR data can give us a clear picture of what crimes the police are processing.

Question 48

As the reliability of a statistical measure increases,its validity as a count of crime frequently decreases.

Question 49

Which of the following is a challenge when comparing court survey information to that gathered by the UCR?

A) the sensitive nature of the information being recorded in both cases
B) the difficulty tracking offenders down to have them complete the surveys
C) the lack of honesty captured when police and judges complete the surveys
D) the time lag between the charge and the decision when the two types of surveys collect their data

Question 50

Crime rate is calculated by dividing population by 100.

Question 51

If several crimes are committed in one incident,only the most serious crime is counted.

Question 52

Administrative records are the primary foundation of research studies on crime rates.

Question 53

If a fight occurs and four people are assaulted,four incidents of assault will be recorded for statistical purposes.

Question 54

One of the issues with relying on police statistics is that officers use judgment at calls to determine whether or not lay charges.

Question 55

Online crimes are among the easiest to detect and are one of the most reported types of crime.

Question 56

Compared to the UCR1,the UCR2 has reduced the amount of information collected on crime by the police.

Question 57

Crimes known to the police will always be biased by inconsistencies in reporting and recording.

Question 58

The crime funnel depicts how only a fraction of criminal incidents result in a police report.

Question 59

Which of the following is the basic unit of count for the court surveys?

A) the offence
B) the case
C) the individual
D) the judge

Question 60

Which of the following would be selected to represent a case by the courts under the "most serious decision" rule?

A) not criminally responsible
B) guilty
C) acquitted
D) withdrawn,dismissed and discharged

Question 61

The risk of violent victimization is highest for older Canadians,especially those 65 years of age or older.

Question 62

Self-report studies complement UCR data because they help answer specific questions related to understanding the causes and correlates of crime.

Question 63

Victimization surveys are dependent on respondents' ability to place the incidents correctly in time.

Question 64

A court survey entails the administration of a questionnaire to a random sample of criminal court judges.