(REVIEW OF CHAPT 2):

OFFICIAL statistics

VICTIMIZATION surveys

SELF-REPORT surveys

All have problems (surveys: Reporting bias; Under-reporting)

REMEMBER: Stats are for STREET CRIMES: (arson, car theft,
larceny-theft, murder, rapes, burglary, robbery, aggravated
assaults).

REMEMBER: UCR data are for STREET CRIMES, which constitute
only about 2 pct of the total SOCIAL COSTS OF CRIMES

REMEMBER: DARK FIGURE OF CRIME

REMEMBER: It's TRENDS:

   total crime indx   viol crime    prop crime
   (rate per 100,000 people)

 1960      1,887          161           1,726
 1970      3,985          364           3,621
 1980      5,950          596           5,353
 1990      5,820          732           5,089
 1993      5,483          746           4,747

REMEMBER: DATA DO NOT SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. They give a picture,
and different sources allow us to put together trends and
a reasonably clear picture of the problem.
1) They are NOT objectiive facts (ie, not "neutral" or
"unbiased"); 2) The data are defined by concepts/definitions;
3) They are subject to error;

A few factoids:

1) Our course, our book, and society focuses on STREET CRIME
(ie, FBI index crimes). Yet, street crime accounts for less
than 20 percent of *all* crimes (some accounts say about 1/3,
but that's still low); VIOLENT CRIME accounts for only
about 13.6 percent of all index crime
(in '93, roughly 12.6 million index crimes; of these,
about 1.7 million were violent crimes (murder, rape, assault).

A few factoids:

1) The text (chapter 2) indicates that only 37 percent of all
crimes are reported (about 70 pct of auto thefts, but only
25 pct of simple larcenies);