Measuring the Severity of Self-Reported Delinquency - The Development of a Seriousness Scale

• NCJ Number: 74489
• Journal: Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 71 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1980) Pages: 637-644
• Author(s): R P Kern; W D Bales
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 9 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study adopted scaling techniques developed within the field of psychophysics and applied them to the evaluation of relative perceived seriousness of generically phrased offense items on a delinquency index of self-reported deviant behavior.

Abstract

Victimless and public order offenses were also considered. To control for possible unknown response biases such as queuing effect, offense items were randomized into different rank orderings which resulted in three categorical and three magnitude questionnaires containing varied offense sequencing. Judges were 172 undergraduate criminology students (85 categorical and 87 magnitude). Offense items included murder, rape, breaking and entering, and car theft among others. Consistent with the belief that offense phrasing specificity in self-report surveys may precipitate problems, the offense descriptions used in this inquiry contained phrases representing property values within monetary ranges of $10 to $100: a power function for monetary value was derived. Subjects perceived all the violent personal crimes (murder, rape, etc.) as more serious than all property, public order, or victimless offenses. Moreover, weapon usage doubled the perceived seriousness rating of the robbery offense. Status offenses were all perceived as being of minor relative importance. It was established empirically that the offense severity scale values were obtained by discrimination processes similar to those occurring in sensory psychophysics and therefore validate scale results. The derived severity scale values are readily applicable to data collected from most self-report instruments. Areas of concern for future research involve the selection of offense items, refinement of monetary values, and selection of study subjects. By using judges who both respond to a self-report inventory and who evaluate the relative seriousness of all acts appearing on the instrument it may be possible to empirically determine whether a respondent's perceived seriousness evaluation of particular items is influenced by admitted involvement in the act. Over 40 notes, tables, and figures are appended.