Overhaul of Crime Stats Should Include Data Theft, Toxic Spills: Expert Panel
"An expert committee organized by the National Academy of Sciences called... for centralizing the control of collecting crime statistics as part of
an overhaul of the nation’s crime-data collection system.
Such an overhaul, which would fill in gaps on reporting of offenses
like data theft and environmental crime, is essential to developing a
“more inclusive picture of crime in the United States,” the committee
said.
The changes would help managers and policymakers better assess the
effectiveness of crime-fighting policies, evaluate the effectiveness of
existing policies, and make justice agencies more accountable, it added."
View the Full Prepublished Report
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Showing posts with label Crime statistics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crime statistics. Show all posts
Perspectives on Policing: Mixed Signals for Police Improvement: The Value of your Crime Severity Score May Go Up as well as Down
"The development of a Crime Severity Score for England and Wales by the Office for National Statistics represents an important step towards a more sophisticated 'two-dimensional' understanding of police-recorded crime data. In this paper I start to unpick what it tells us about recent changes in the policing environment, point out its limitations as a tool for understanding crime change and flag-up some potential hazards in its usage, particularly as a tool for making judgements about 'performance'. I argue that its main value is to make central a set of 'severe' (high-tariff, high-harm, high-demand) abuse crime that are recorded in relatively low (but growing) numbers, and for which changes in the volume recorded by the police are a poor indicator of change in actual incidence. This rebalancing should force us to reconsider the meanings we attach to the ups and downs of police-recorded crime (whether weighted or otherwise) and to challenge the habit of seeing progress in reduction. Finally, I put forward suggestions for some non-traditional crime data division - such as between 'abuse' and 'reduce' crime, 'patent' and 'latent' demand crime and 'initial' and 'repeat' victim crime - that might prove useful for disambiguating aggregate Crime Severity Scores, and providing a more three-dimensional perspective on crime, police practice and on the relationships between the two."
"The development of a Crime Severity Score for England and Wales by the Office for National Statistics represents an important step towards a more sophisticated 'two-dimensional' understanding of police-recorded crime data. In this paper I start to unpick what it tells us about recent changes in the policing environment, point out its limitations as a tool for understanding crime change and flag-up some potential hazards in its usage, particularly as a tool for making judgements about 'performance'. I argue that its main value is to make central a set of 'severe' (high-tariff, high-harm, high-demand) abuse crime that are recorded in relatively low (but growing) numbers, and for which changes in the volume recorded by the police are a poor indicator of change in actual incidence. This rebalancing should force us to reconsider the meanings we attach to the ups and downs of police-recorded crime (whether weighted or otherwise) and to challenge the habit of seeing progress in reduction. Finally, I put forward suggestions for some non-traditional crime data division - such as between 'abuse' and 'reduce' crime, 'patent' and 'latent' demand crime and 'initial' and 'repeat' victim crime - that might prove useful for disambiguating aggregate Crime Severity Scores, and providing a more three-dimensional perspective on crime, police practice and on the relationships between the two."
Weaning America Off Violent Crime Stats: http://t.co/6Ovah9rxaM
— Crim Library UTL (@CrimLib) September 25, 2015
The Cost of Crime in Canada
"Despite a decreasing crime rate over a 10-year-period, the costs associated with fighting and punishing illegal activity has increased dramatically, according to a report by public policy think-tank the Fraser Institute.
"Between 2002 and 2012, Canada's crime rate declined 27% while costs associated to the justice system increased 36%.
The report's authors point to actions by the Supreme Court of Canada as directly affecting the cost of justice - specifically, the right to a state-funded lawyer, the right to a speedy trial as well as the requirement by the Crown to full disclosure of all evidence.
Police, for example, are legally obligated to fully disclose to defence lawyers copies of all investigative materials, audio and video recordings, notebook entries, reports, tips from the public; all operational plans, wiretap information and phone records, among other things....
The report also emphasizes a glaring omission in the way crime statistics are compiled.
The Statistics Canada General Social Survey looks specifically at criminal activity but is only conducted every five years.
The report questions the veracity of that data because it isn't collected annually and concludes the ability to collect meaningful statistics is severely compromised."
View the Report
"Despite a decreasing crime rate over a 10-year-period, the costs associated with fighting and punishing illegal activity has increased dramatically, according to a report by public policy think-tank the Fraser Institute.
"Between 2002 and 2012, Canada's crime rate declined 27% while costs associated to the justice system increased 36%.
The report's authors point to actions by the Supreme Court of Canada as directly affecting the cost of justice - specifically, the right to a state-funded lawyer, the right to a speedy trial as well as the requirement by the Crown to full disclosure of all evidence.
Police, for example, are legally obligated to fully disclose to defence lawyers copies of all investigative materials, audio and video recordings, notebook entries, reports, tips from the public; all operational plans, wiretap information and phone records, among other things....
The report also emphasizes a glaring omission in the way crime statistics are compiled.
The Statistics Canada General Social Survey looks specifically at criminal activity but is only conducted every five years.
The report questions the veracity of that data because it isn't collected annually and concludes the ability to collect meaningful statistics is severely compromised."
View the Report
Police reported crime statistics, 2013
The police-reported Crime Severity Index (CSI), which measures the volume and severity of crime, declined 9% in 2013 compared with 2012. This was the 10th consecutive decline in the index. The CSI was 36% lower than 10 years earlier.
The traditional crime rate also declined in 2013 compared with 2012, falling 8%. It continued its long-term downward trend that began in the early 1990s, reaching its lowest level since 1969. Since 1962, the traditional crime rate has measured the volume of crime, but does not take into account the severity of crimes.
The police-reported Crime Severity Index (CSI), which measures the volume and severity of crime, declined 9% in 2013 compared with 2012. This was the 10th consecutive decline in the index. The CSI was 36% lower than 10 years earlier.
The traditional crime rate also declined in 2013 compared with 2012, falling 8%. It continued its long-term downward trend that began in the early 1990s, reaching its lowest level since 1969. Since 1962, the traditional crime rate has measured the volume of crime, but does not take into account the severity of crimes.
Criminal cases plunge across Toronto
The benches in youth
bail court look like pews in a church. People sit in clusters — young
people with their relatives, lawyers, friends — all praying for a
favourable outcome.
On a Monday in late
February, there is room to spare on the benches at the bail court at 311
Jarvis St. Two girls in dangling earrings and hoodies whisper in the
back row. Across the aisle, a boy, slim, his head down, sits next to his
parents as his lawyer translates the proceedings into Mandarin. A few
other knots of people are scattered among the rows. One bench is
completely empty.
About 45 minutes into the hearings, the judge calls for a recess. There is no one left to come before the court.
Native-Born Americans More Likely To Commit Crimes Than Immigrants, Study Finds
A Pew Research Center report
released last week found that second generation immigrants have
“striking similarities” to their native-born, non-Hispanic white
counterparts when it comes to committing crime. In fact, when it comes
to crime rates, second-generation offenders are merely “catching up” to
the native-born population.
Biance E. Bersani conducted the study using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, and found that criminality peaks at the age of 16 for 25 percent of the native-born population and a little less than 25 percent for second-generation immigrants. Meanwhile, 17 percent of 16 year old first-generation immigrants committed crime. Overall, first-generation immigrants commit crime at a lower rate than second-generation and native-born, non-Hispanic whites.
Read on...
Biance E. Bersani conducted the study using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, and found that criminality peaks at the age of 16 for 25 percent of the native-born population and a little less than 25 percent for second-generation immigrants. Meanwhile, 17 percent of 16 year old first-generation immigrants committed crime. Overall, first-generation immigrants commit crime at a lower rate than second-generation and native-born, non-Hispanic whites.
Read on...
The US Murder Rate Is on Track to Be Lowest in a Century
This is fairly preliminary data, but Rick Nevin reports that if current
trends keep up, we'll end 2013 with the murder rate in America at its lowest rate in over a century.
Analytically speaking, murder is an especially interesting crime because we have pretty good homicide statistics going all the way back to 1900. Most other crimes have only been tracked since about 1960. And if you look at the murder rate in the chart below (the red line), you see that it follows an odd double-hump pattern: rising in the first third of the century, reaching a peak around 1930; then declining until about 1960; then rising again, reaching a second peak around 1990. It's been dropping ever since then.
This is the exact same pattern we see in lead ingestion among small children, offset by 21 years (the black line). Lead exposure rises in the late 1800s, during the heyday of lead paint, reaching a peak around 1910; then declines through World War II; and then begins rising again during our postwar love affair with big cars that burned high-octane leaded gasoline. Lead finally enters its final decline in the mid-70s when we begin the switch to unleaded gasoline.
Read on...
Analytically speaking, murder is an especially interesting crime because we have pretty good homicide statistics going all the way back to 1900. Most other crimes have only been tracked since about 1960. And if you look at the murder rate in the chart below (the red line), you see that it follows an odd double-hump pattern: rising in the first third of the century, reaching a peak around 1930; then declining until about 1960; then rising again, reaching a second peak around 1990. It's been dropping ever since then.
This is the exact same pattern we see in lead ingestion among small children, offset by 21 years (the black line). Lead exposure rises in the late 1800s, during the heyday of lead paint, reaching a peak around 1910; then declines through World War II; and then begins rising again during our postwar love affair with big cars that burned high-octane leaded gasoline. Lead finally enters its final decline in the mid-70s when we begin the switch to unleaded gasoline.
Read on...
New York Celebrates Record Low Homicides in 2012 While Chicago Grapples With Spike
Even though New Yorkers were terrified by news that a woman pushed a
man in front of a train in Queens on Thursday night (a suspect was in custody Saturday)
in what was the second subway fatality of its kind in a month, the
truth is that it was quite a safe year to be a resident of the Big
Apple. Murders in New York dropped to their lowest level in more than 40
years with 414 recorded homicides as of Friday, compared with 515 for
the same period last year, and lower than the previous record low of 471
set in 2009, reports the New York Times.
That is quite the contrast from the early 1990s, when the number of
homicides in a year easily reached the low 2,000s. While murders
decreased, thefts increased, based almost entirely in a soaring number
of robberies of Apple devices, including iPhones.
While New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg celebrated the latest plunge,
officials in the country’s third-largest city have been grappling with
how to make sure 2013 doesn’t see a repeat of what was a very bloody
year. The murder count in Chicago reached 500 last Friday, the first
time it reached that number in four years, when 513 were killed in 2008,
reports the Chicago Tribune.
It marked a 17 percent increase in homicides from last year, in large
part because of gang violence that seems to be increasingly audacious,
points out the Associated Press.
Still, the number of homicides this year pales in comparison to what
the city saw in the early 1990s when around 900 people were killed every
year.
Read on...
Read on...
Homicides decrease in Washington region
The number of homicides dropped again last year in the Washington region, including in the District, which grew in population and yet recorded the fewest killings in a half-century.
As of Monday evening, the District had 88 killings in 2012, a milestone for D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, whose long-standing goal has been fewer than 100 homicides. As recently as 2009, the District had 140 killings. In 2011, there were 108.
In Prince George’s County, where crime dropped in nearly every category, there were 63 homicides, down from 97 in 2011, a harkening back to the 1980s, when the county had more farmland than urban centers or upscale subdivisions.
Police point to several reasons for the decrease, which has been part of a years-long national trend in some major cities across the country.Authorities have broken up dozens of violent gangs, seized thousands of guns, used technology to monitor the streets and directed additional resources to high-crime areas.
Read on...
As of Monday evening, the District had 88 killings in 2012, a milestone for D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, whose long-standing goal has been fewer than 100 homicides. As recently as 2009, the District had 140 killings. In 2011, there were 108.
In Prince George’s County, where crime dropped in nearly every category, there were 63 homicides, down from 97 in 2011, a harkening back to the 1980s, when the county had more farmland than urban centers or upscale subdivisions.
Police point to several reasons for the decrease, which has been part of a years-long national trend in some major cities across the country.Authorities have broken up dozens of violent gangs, seized thousands of guns, used technology to monitor the streets and directed additional resources to high-crime areas.
Read on...
Police ‘whitewashing’ crime stats, study says
The majority of Canadian police forces are “whitewashing” crime statistics by refusing to provide information about the race of people they come into contact with, says a new report by two Ontario criminologists.
Only a minority of police agencies — 20 per cent — have policies restricting them from releasing the data, but nearly 60 per cent suppress it anyway, the report says.
The findings are to be published Wednesday in the Canadian Journal of Law and Society.
Withholding the information makes police less accountable and makes it more difficult for researchers to study how race may influence policing, said Paul Millar, a Nippissing University criminal justice professor, who conducted the study with Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto Centre for Criminology.
Akwasi, co-author of this report is a Centre doctoral candidate. Here is a link to a CBC radio interview with Akwasi:
http://www.cbc.ca/metromorning/episodes/2012/02/01/whitewashing/
And Akwasi will be on Global News tonight at 6:30. Tom
Homicides plunge in Toronto to lowest level in 25 years
Toronto has closed the book on 2011 with the lowest homicide total in a quarter century.
The city recorded 45 homicides, the lowest number since 1986 when there were 37 murders. In 2010 there were 61 homicides.
This is also the fourth straight year of declines since 2007 when the city recorded its deadliest year (matched in 1991) with 86 homicides.
The big drop in Toronto numbers no doubt bolsters Chief Bill Blair’s image, which took a hit in 2010 following the mass arrests during the meeting of G20 leaders and the controversy that followed.
Blair says there’s still more work to do.
“I think we can make this city safer,” the chief told the Star.
Police Tactic: Keeping Crime Reports Off the Books
Jill Korber walked into a drab police station in Queens in July to report that a passing bicyclist had groped her two days in a row. She left in tears, frustrated, she said, by the response of the first officer she encountered.
“He told me it would be a waste of time, because I didn’t know who the guy was or where he worked or anything,” said Ms. Korber, 34, a schoolteacher. “His words to me were, ‘These things happen.’ He said those words.”
Crime victims in New York sometimes struggle to persuade the police to write down what happened on an official report. The reasons are varied. Police officers are often busy, and few relish paperwork. But in interviews, more than half a dozen police officers, detectives and commanders also cited departmental pressure to keep crime statistics low.
While it is difficult to say how often crime complaints are not officially recorded, the Police Department is conscious of the potential problem, trying to ferret out unreported crimes through audits of emergency calls and of any resulting paperwork.
Crime falls to 1973 levels as Tories push for sentencing reform
New statistics show the national crime rate is continuing its 20-year decline – reaching levels not seen since 1973 even as the federal Conservative government prepares legislation that would put more Canadians behind bars for longer periods of time.
It is a juxtaposition of politics and reality that has prompted critics to accuse the government of ignoring facts at taxpayers’ expense as it pursues a criminal-justice agenda focused on punishment rather than prevention.
Statistics Canada released it’s annual survey of police-reported crime on Tuesday. It shows the overall volume of criminal incidents fell by 5 per cent between 2009 and 2010, and the relative severity of the crimes took a similar dive.
Homicides, attempted murders, serious assaults and robberies were all down last year from the year before. Young people were accused of committing fewer offences. Even property crime was reported less frequently with reductions in both break-ins and car thefts.
Hate Crimes In Canada: Statistics Canada Notes Large Jump In Police Reports In 2009
THE CANADIAN PRESS -- The number of police-reported hate crimes in Canada increased 42 per cent in 2009, says a new study released today.
Canadian police services reported 1,473 hate crimes in 2009, up by 437 incidents. That came on the heels of a 35 per cent increase in 2008.
Statistics Canada says more than half (54 per cent) of police-reported hate crimes in 2009 were motivated by race or ethnicity, 29 per cent by religion and 13 per cent by sexual orientation.
All increased, especially hate crimes motivated by religion, which rose 55 per cent, the agency says.
The number of racially motivated hate crimes was up 35 per cent, it says, while those motivated by sexual orientation went up 18 per cent.
"Violent offences, such as assault, accounted for about four in 10 hate crimes reported by police. Violent offences were particularly more common among hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation."
Steady Decline in Major Crime Baffles Experts
The number of violent crimes in the United States dropped significantly last year, to what appeared to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years, a development that was considered puzzling partly because it ran counter to the prevailing expectation that crime would increase during a recession.
In all regions, the country appears to be safer. The odds of being murdered or robbed are now less than half of what they were in the early 1990s, when violent crime peaked in the United States. Small towns, especially, are seeing far fewer murders: In cities with populations under 10,000, the number plunged by more than 25 percent last year.
The news was not as positive in New York City, however. After leading a long decline in crime rates, the city saw increases in all four types of violent lawbreaking — murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault — including a nearly 14 percent rise in murders. But data from the past few months suggest the city’s upward trend may have slowed or stopped.
Crime Rates Are Plummeting -- And No One Knows Why
Could it be that America is actually turning less violent? Or are we as violent as ever — but have simply found different ways of assuaging our urges?
Los Angeles' violent-crime rates are four times lower now than they were 1992. The interesting thing is, nobody can really explain why.
As of December 25, last year, only 293 homicides were reported in LA, along with 781 rapes, 10,734 robberies, and 9,129 aggravated assaults. In 1992, that blood-soaked year of the Rodney King Riots, Los Angeles saw 1,092 murders, 1,861 rapes, 39,222 robberies, and 47,736 aggravated assaults.These figures echo a nationwide trend. "Crime Rate at 20-Year Low Level," reads a February 24 headline in the Frederick, Maryland News Post. "Major Crime at 39-Year Low in Elgin," the Chicago Tribune crowed on February 22. "Fresno's Murder Rate Is Drastically Down in 2011," announced that California's town's ABC-TV affiliate on February 23. Such headlines are typical these days. Crime's down. What's up?
Theories abound. Various agencies, such as the office of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, credit themselves with the shift. But in the din of the applause, some of these theories and claims cancel each other out.
New York Crime Statistics: What the Researchers Say
To the Editor:
Re “Crime by the Numbers,” by William Bratton (Op-Ed, Feb. 17):
Mr. Bratton refers to a survey conducted by us. After reading the article, which disparages our research, we feel it necessary to respond.
The New York City Police Department, which has led the nation in producing historical and very real reductions in crime, is in a cramped statistical box. When precincts are under pressure to continue to reduce crime, the message radiates down to all levels. Combating their own success, the police imaginatively redouble efforts to achieve further reductions. Compstat serves as a mechanism to ensure these reductions.
Our previous writings explored how the Police Department’s Compstat system for tracking crime contributed to the city’s sharp drop in crime.
We still believe that there has been a significant drop in crime and that the fundamentals of Compstat are sound. But like the retired police commanders we surveyed and numerous other scientific studies, we also see the underside of Compstat.
Only long-neglected departmental transparency will assuage the department’s current condition. The Citizens Crime Commission’s recommendations for sharing data and internal audits are an important first step.
We have great respect for the past and present leadership of the N.Y.P.D. Our findings warrant the same respect.
Eli B. Silverman
John A. Eterno
Rockville Centre, N.Y., Feb. 22, 2010
Mr. Silverman is professor emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the author of “N.Y.P.D. Battles Crime: Innovative Strategies in Policing.” Mr. Eterno, a retired N.Y.P.D. captain, is associate dean and director of graduate studies at Molloy College.
This letter to the New York Times is in response to an earlier Crimbrary post Crime by the Numbers. Tom
Police-reported crime statistics
Published by Statistics Canada
Police-reported crime in Canada continued to decline in 2008. Both the traditional crime rate and the new Crime Severity Index fell 5%, meaning that both the volume of police-reported crime and its severity decreased. Violent crime also dropped, but to a lesser extent.
Read on...
Police-reported crime in Canada continued to decline in 2008. Both the traditional crime rate and the new Crime Severity Index fell 5%, meaning that both the volume of police-reported crime and its severity decreased. Violent crime also dropped, but to a lesser extent.
Read on...
City crime rate plunges 30%
Jul 09, 2009 04:30 AM
Four years after the Summer of the Gun, Toronto police Chief Bill Blair is celebrating a nearly 30 per cent overall drop in crime.
"We have experienced crime reduction numbers in this city that are without precedence anywhere in North America," Blair said.
The only areas in which they haven't seen consistent "satisfactory" decreases are some types of violent crime, Blair added, particularly in the number of shootings and homicides.
But compared with this time last year, murder, sexual assault and assault are all down by more than 10 per cent. As of July 4, there were 672 sexual assaults, compared with 796 at the same time last year. There were 8,368 assaults so far this year but 9,412 in 2008.
Break and enters and auto thefts have also declined. The only spike in major crime – and it was a small one at 2 per cent – was in the number of robberies, from 2,142 last year to 2,190 this year.
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