NCJ Number
84595
Journal
Impact Issue: 1 Dated: (1982) Pages: 1-10
Date Published
1982
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This Canadian paper documents the source of official crime rates, describes and comments on the extent of changes in these during the last 2 decades, and draws attention to some of their limitations as measures of the crime problem.
Abstract
In Canada, official crime statistics are a record of police activities -- from initial contact to court proceedings -- with regard to some 18 legally defined offense categories. Data on these police activities are first recorded by individual police detachments, then compiled nationally and published annually by Statistics Canada. Crimes are counted as the number of offenses known or reported to the police less the number of cases subsequently determined to have been unfounded. Two general categories of crime are violent crimes (manslaughter, murder, attempted murder and rape, wounding, and robbery) and property crimes (break and enter and motor vehicle theft). Officially reported crime, as reflected in a selected violent and property crime index, has increased significantly during the last 20 years (1962-80). Official crime rates need to be interpreted with caution because they underestimate crime levels in the community, since a large proportion of crimes do not become known to the police. While increases in crime are related to changes in various economic, demographic, social, and cultural factors, investigations into the correlates at this level are not very useful. Routine activity analysis, which examines incidents of crime taking into account target suitability, lack of adequate security, and offender characteristics, promises to be a more fruitful approach. Studies on the impact of crime rates indicate that fear of crime can be related not only to official crime rates but also to media coverage of crime and one's view of police effectiveness. Tables and 13 references are given.