Alternative Measures of Crime
A Statistical Evaluation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2276240 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Larry J Cohen (0000-0003-2207-0598, University of Illinois Chicago), Larry Cohen (0000-0002-0721-8980, University of Illinois Chicago), Mark I Lichbach (University of Illinois Chicago), Mark Lichbach (0000-0002-2461-5013, University of Illinois Chicago) |
| Year | 1982 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 253-266 |
| Publication date | 1982-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociological Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0253 • E-ISSN: 1533-8525 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1533-8525.1982.tb01011.x |
| OpenAlex | W2104929635 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 13 |
The purpose of this paper is to explore two alternative measures of “crime”: official incidence reports, compiled and published as the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), and citizen-defined victimizations, compiled and published as the National Crime Surveys (NCS). Six categories of crime are examined (auto theft, burglary, larceny, robbery, rape, and assault) for thirty-nine cities, and two categories (auto theft and robbery) are analyzed for ten other cities. Previous studies have approached the problem of comparing UCR and NCS measurements of crime with a “validity and convergence” perspective. The regression model approach we adopt, which expands on those studies, assesses the extent to which these alternative measurements of crime are equivalent, comparable or divergent. We regress victimizations on incidents and then check the goodness-of-fit of our model with three tests: (1) an examination of victimization/incidence ratios for all cities; (2) a determination if confidence intervals placed about victimization estimates included incidents; and (3) a forecast of victimizations using incidents. Results indicated that, in general, the two measurements of property crimes are comparable; however, only those of auto thefts approached equivalence. On the other hand, the measurements of personal crimes are clearly divergent. We conclude that future research must explain why some crimes are easier to assess than others, and why some cities do so much better at assessing crime than other cities
Crime statistics · Criminology · Equivalence (formal languages) · Goodness of fit · Property crime · Statistics · Violent crime · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Mathematics · Psychology · Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes · Traffic and Road Safety
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Rare events, sample size, and statistical problems in the analysis of the NCS city surveys
UCR and NCS
Robberies with guns
Protest in America
Discrepancies Between Crime Reports and Crime Surveys
Assessing the Validity of Official Data on Arson
Trend and Deviation in Crime Rates
Are Uniform Crime Reports a Valid Indicator of the Index Crimes? An Affirmative Answer With Minor Qualifications
Competing Perspectives on Cross-National Crime
Age composition and alternative explanations of crime
Sociologists, economists and democracy
Criminal Victimization in the United States
A Comment on Alleged Overreporting
Official crime rates and victim surveys
Crime statistics
Criminal justice and the victim
The uniform crime reports revisited
Police Reports and Victimization Survey Results an Empirical Study
The Potential for Crime Overreporting in Criminal Victimization Surveys
Per Capita Index Construction
Straight Lines and Straight Thinking
Correlates of City Crime Rates
| Unique citing works | 13 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,31 |
| Citation span | 1984 - 2007 (24) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 11 |