Deck 4: Counting Crime

Question 1

Which of the following statements is NOT reflected in the so-called "crime funnel"?

A)Only some criminal incidents are detected by police.
B)Only a portion of recorded incidents result in suspects being identified.
C)Only a portion of suspects are arrested or charged.
D)Only a few offenders will plead guilty.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

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

Answer 2

C

Question 3

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 3

B

Question 4

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 did Polsky advocate we use?

A)uniform crime reports
B)victimization surveys
C)field research
D)self-reports

Question 5

Which of the following is NOT one of 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 help provide information for policies,planning,and theory building while statistics are geared towards making decisions about individual cases.
C)Administrative records are an important source of information for criminal justice statistics.
D)Before converting records into statistics,issues like levels of aggregation and counting procedures must be considered.

Question 6

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 7

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 8

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

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

Question 9

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 under-reported in crime statistics.
C)"Hard" (quantitative)measures of crime are more accurate than "soft" (qualitative)measures.
D)Crime resists measurement.

Question 10

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 11

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 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 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 14

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 15

Murder-rate statistics are the most accurate of all crime statistics.Which of the following statements best reflects this assertion?

A)The murder rate statistics are consistent.
B)The murder rate statistics are valid.
C)The murder rate statistics are reliable.
D)The murder rate statistics are generalizable.

Question 16

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

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

Question 17

With of the following pairs of terms best describes crime rate statistics that consistently under-estimate the actual level of crime over the course of five years?

A)neither reliable nor valid
B)valid but not reliable
C)reliable but not valid
D)reliable and valid

Question 18

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 19

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 20

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 21

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 22

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 23

Which of the following is NOT one of the limitations of a victimization survey?

A)Consensual crimes are not captured by victimization surveys.
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 people's memory,truthfulness,etc.
D)Victimization surveys are influenced by how police collect,maintain,and report the data.

Question 24

According to the 2009 General Social Survey,of the crime incidents identified by victims,approximately what proportion was reported to the police by victims?

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

Question 25

Which of the following accurately depicts the police-reported Crime Severity Index in Canada from 1998 to 2013?

A)It decreased steadily.
B)It increased till about 1991 and has declined since.
C)It increased steadily.
D)It has remained virtually unchanged.

Question 26

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 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

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 29

Which of the following is NOT representative of how police policies and priorities can influence the official crime rate?

A)Police officers have great discretion regarding what crimes are serious enough to attend to,record,and pursue.
B)Police are more apt to lay charges for domestic violence compared to 40 years ago.
C)Policing policies and priorities have remained the same for the last 40 years.
D)Police are more frequently called to schools to deal with student violence today,compared to 40 years ago.

Question 30

Which of the following methods is best to use to learn more about characteristics of offenders?

A)victimization studies
B)self-report studies
C)Uniform Crime Reports
D)the General Social Survey

Question 31

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 32

What type of survey takes a random sample of Canadians and asks them through an interview or a survey if they have been the victim of crime?

A)self-report survey
B)UCR survey
C)victimization survey
D)court survey

Question 33

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 34

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 35

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 36

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,violations of other federal and provincial statues,and violations of some municipal bylaws
D)Criminal Code violations and violations of other federal and provincial statues

Question 37

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 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 far 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 underestimates the actual level of crime.

Question 39

Which of the following accurately depicts the total Criminal Code offence rate from 1962 through 2010?

A)It has remained virtually unchanged.
B)It increased until about 1991 and has remained about the same since.
C)It has increased steadily.
D)It increased until about 1991 and declined since.

Question 40

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 41

The total crime rate as documented in the Uniform Crime Report has declined since the peak year of 1991.

Question 42

The homicide rate has been increasing at an alarming rate in Canada since 1961.

Question 43

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

Question 44

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

Question 45

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

Question 46

Which of the following is NOT a benefit of a self-report survey?

A)The people who know the most about crime are those who break the law.
B)It can provide important information about the characteristics of offenders.
C)Research shows that offenders are generally truthful in such surveys.
D)It allows for an accurate depiction of the crime rate.

Question 47

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

Question 48

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

Question 49

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

Question 50

The accuracy of crime statistics is not dependent upon on the source of raw data.

Question 51

Victimization surveys involve random samples of the population about their victimization experiences.

Question 52

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

Question 53

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

Question 54

Data elements refer to a consensus about what specific information should be collected.

Question 55

A gross count of crime is sufficient for a researcher wishing to compare the amount of crime over time.

Question 56

Definitions refer to consensus on how to count units and elements.

Question 57

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

Question 58

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

Question 59

Levels of aggregation refer to consensus about how to combine data.

Question 60

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

Question 61

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

Question 62

Identify and describe the three main methods for measuring crime in Canada.Compare and contrast the three and include an analysis of the pros and cons of each as far as the validity and reliability of the statistics produced.

Question 63

Identify,compare and contrast the concepts of reliability and validity within the context of statistics and crime statistics specifically.

Question 64

The textbook notes that official crime data (UCR statistics)"may tell us more about police activities than about crime." What is meant by this statement? What are some examples of how official crime data may be more a reflection of a police agency than the actual level of crime?

Question 65

Compare and contrast the UCR Aggregate (UCR1.0)Survey and the UCR Incident-Based (UCR2.0)Survey.

Question 66

What are the strengths and limitations of self-report surveys?

Question 67

"Seniors' perceptions of their personal safety are not supported by victimization surveys."  Discuss this statement and make note of some of the research finding that support this statement.

Question 68

Identify some of the key concerns and limitations associated with the use of Uniform Crime Reports.

Question 69

Describe the crime severity index.Why was it developed (i.e. ,what limitations of existing UCR statistics did it address)?

Question 70

Describe what is meant by the "crime funnel." Why is it significant when considering the reliability and validity of criminal justice statistics?

Question 71

What are the strengths and limitations of victimization surveys?

Question 72

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

Question 73

What is meant by the term the "dark figure of crime"? Provide specific examples of "darkness" that characterize our understanding of the scope of crime in Canada.

Question 74

Compare and contrast the crime severity index with the violent crime rate.

Question 75

Why are the concepts of reliability and validity important within the context of combating crime and the effective operation of the criminal justice system?

Question 76

Compare and contrast "administrative records" and "statistics" within the context of the criminal justice system.Note the respective roles that each play within the criminal justice system.