NCJ Number
88809
Editor(s)
J Hagan
Date Published
1982
Length
149 pages
Annotation
The seven papers in this volume address quantitative criminological research issues in methodologically innovative ways, presenting time-series analyses and modeling approaches that examine crime and victimization statistics, criminal justice processing, punishment theories, delinquency factors, and correlations between urban police strength and crime rates.
Abstract
One paper describes a time-series analysis of the impact of organizational structure on three police departments' Uniform Crime Reporting procedures. The results demonstrate that types of investigations, organizational goals, and screening procedures influence official crime statistics. The authors conclude that Uniform Crime Report statistics are noncomparable across jurisidictions. A time-series analysis of money spent annually on corrections compared total expenditures for other public services by California from 1860 to 1970 challenges the Durkheimian view that societies tend toward stable levels of punishment. Another paper examines the National Crime Survey methodology and outlines several longitudinal models for victimizations that can be used to produce annual prevalence rates of the number of housing units touched by crime. The influence of race or ethnic group is explored by applying a multivariate, finite-state continuous time stochastic model of court processing to rates of transition from arrest to case disposition. Another study demonstrates the benefits of the uniform association model over the general log-linear method by analyzing data from a 3x3x3 cross classification of self-reported delinquent acts, number of delinquent friends, and attitudes toward breaking the law. The final paper incorporates Marxist theory into models examining police strength, concluding that the rate of surplus value in manufacturing along with other economic factors explain all the effect of black population size on either police strength or crime in Chicago between 1947 and 1970. All papers contain tables, graphs, and references. For individual papers, see NCJ-88810-15.