discuss your observations of this TV news coverage considering the following questions:
discuss your observations of this TV news coverage considering the following questions:
Given the subject matter in Lessons 3 & 4, what specific themes can you derive from these TV news clips?
How are the victims portrayed? What are their characteristics?
How do the media reinforce these images and perceptions?
Do these characteristics support the patterns that we discern from the official crime statistics referenced in the text?
I will attach lesson 3 and 4
One source needs to be from Crime Victims an introduction to victimology by Karmen
LESSON 3
Andrew Karmen begins his discussion on crime statistics and victimology by introducing a concept that he labels as “The Big Picture.” In this discussion your text author is trying to guide you in the direction of developing an ability to better answer important questions, such as: What is the volume of crime victimization? Has there been change over time? Which individuals and/or groups are the most and the least likely to be targeted as crime victims? When and where do most crime victimizations occur? The “Big Picture” represents a body of statistically derived measures that form a scientific basis for answering the many questions that are raised in the study of victimology. In this sense, the “Big Picture” serves as an antidote to all the unscientific influences that surround us and thus affect our perceptions. These unscientific influences frequently contain serious biases that distort our perceptions.
In earlier editions of your text, Karmen summarizes some of the common sources of potential biases as follows:
• Limited personal experience
• False impressions
• Misleading media images
• Baseless stereotypes
• Vested interests
• Widely held popular myths
karmen was trying to alert you to the fact that these common sources of bias, particularly misleading media images, often lead you to form incorrect perceptions of crime victimization incidents and patterns. For example, many of our intuitively developed notions of who is, or is not, likely to become a crime victim are completely wrong. Most Americans believe that the elderly are particularly vulnerable to being targeted as crime victims, yet statistical data fail to support this notion as scientifically correct. I want to particularly stress the role of the media, both television and the press, in introducing biases. A major goal of the media is to attract attention in order to increase their potential audience and thus to increase profits. It is the unusual that draws attention not the common. But when the unusual is consistently selected, the usual seems to be ignored. In Lesson 4 we will be introducing another laboratory assignment that will further explore this issue.
We are now beginning our review of the three major official sources of victimization data. The first source is the Unified Crime Report established in 1927 and produced annually by the FBI. You probably remember studying this source of crime data in courses in general criminology and criminal justice so we will only provide a brief summary at this point. Your text contains a more complete discussion, however, and if this material is new to you it is suggested that you consult an introductory text in criminology or criminal justice for a more thorough overview.
Basically, the UCR is a yearly report of eight selected index crimes known to police and voluntarily reported to the FBI by local police. The index crimes include murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. It is important to remember that the listed crimes represent only those crimes that were known to police (either through reporting or direct discovery). It is also important to remember that only these eight crimes are included in the index.
The FBI has a substantial database of the Uniform Crime Report.
When you review the eight index crimes included in the UCR publications (see pages 65-72 of the course textbook) you will notice that white-collar crimes are almost entirely excluded; that is because the index crimes are traditionally of the street crime nature. Furthermore, offenses such as hate crimes, identity fraud, and computer fraud are not included. But what is most important is the fact that the entire report contains virtually no information concerning the crime victims.
To some extent we can use the data in the report to infer some general victimization trends. For example, we may be able to infer that because crime rates are lower in the northern states than in the southern states, the chances of being a crime victim are higher for those who are residents of or who travel in southern states. We may be able to say that the possibility of being a crime victim is higher in heavily populated cities than it is in rural counties. We may be able to state something about the vulnerability of victims over different temporal periods. But beyond these few generalities that may be indirectly interpretable from the UCR data, little real information about the crime victim is available. For example, we are unable to determine victim characteristics such as race, gender or age because such data are not formally collected by the police, and so are not reported to the FBI for inclusion in the report.
National Crime Victimization Survey
Because of the serious limitations of the Uniform Crime Report for the study of crime victims, victimologists were forced to explore other avenues of information that eventually led to the development of their own data collection instruments. Early in the 1960s, criminologists began to experiment with the self-reporting of crime victimization by drawing samples from the general population and interviewing those individuals to determine whether or not they may have experienced crime victimization during a specified period.
Through questionnaires or telephone interviews, the researchers attempted to gain data on the incidences of crime victimization within the sample population surveyed and on the types of crimes that were involved. These efforts resulted in an important breakthrough in the study of victimization and the general study of criminology because dramatic improvements in what we learned when not restricted to the Unified Crime Report led to new information.
The Bureau of Justice maintains a database of National Crime Victimization Surveys.
The victimization surveys were able to include more crimes than the traditional index offenses. Especially we learned more about white-collar crimes, drug crimes, and hate crimes. Because the self-report surveys were not restricted to crimes known to police, a larger share of the crimes committed during a specified period of time was reported. This was true because we could ask respondents whether or not they had experienced a series of specific types of crimes from a list provided by the experimenter.
Another important feature of the victimization surveys is that a wide range of questions could be asked such as the respondents’ personal, social, and demographic characteristics. For example, this allowed the determination of the respondents’ gender, race, social class, age, socioeconomic status, occupation, and a wide variety of other demographic variables to be taken into consideration. From these results, we could now describe typical victims of crime, and because some of the respondents reported not being a victim of crime, we could also develop profiles of individuals who were less likely to be crime victims.
Furthermore, the surveys allowed for the respondents not only to provide information on the characteristics of the victim, but additionally to provide information on the circumstances of the victimization incident, on the characteristics of the offender, and on the resultant consequences of the victimization. In the end, these experimental surveys of victims led to the development of a rich body of information that would become the foundation for the study of victimology. Equally important, however, these studies led to rich contributions to the general study of criminology, helping us to better understand the extent of specific crimes and the causes and consequences of crime in general. As a result, a means of addressing the “dark figure of crime,” that is, crimes not covered by the traditional Uniform Crime Report, became available. We found out that the UCR vastly underestimates the actual amount of crime.
The first opportunity to formally establish a national victimization survey came in the year 1968, in the form of a formal recommendation by the President’s Commission of Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice. The Commission recommended that a national survey of victimization be conducted as a “self-report” survey of a random sample of citizens. In 1973, the National Crime Victimization Survey was developed and conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and is currently produced on an annual basis to supplement the data presented in the annual Uniform Crime Report.
This represents a significant improvement for criminologists as it enhances their research and reporting potential, aiding scholars and practitioners, especially within the focus of victimology. Your text provides a detailed overview of the specifics of this national victimization survey (pages 68-73); you should read this material carefully to become familiar with the scope and usefulness of the measure. Pay attention to both the advantages and disadvantages of this particular self-report victimization survey.
The Foundation for the Study of Victimology
In the end, these experimental surveys of victims led to the development of a rich body of information that would become the foundation for the study of victimology. Equally important, however, these studies led to rich contributions to the general study of criminology, helping us to better understand the extent of specific crimes and the causes and consequences of crime in general.
Read the actual survey form, National Crime Victimization Survey.
As a result, a means of addressing the “dark figure of crime,” that is, crimes not covered by the traditional Uniform Crime Report, became available. We found out that the UCR vastly underestimates the actual amount of crime.
The first opportunity to formally establish a national victimization survey in this direction came in the year 1968 in the form of a formal recommendation by the President’s Commission of Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice. The Commission recommended that a national survey of victimization be conducted as a “self-report” survey of a random sample of citizens.
In 1973, the National Crime Victimization Survey was developed and conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and is currently produced on an annual basis to supplement the data presented in the annual Uniform Crime Report.
The Bureau of Justice has a comparison of The Nation’s Two Crime Measures.
This represents a significant improvement for criminologists as it enhanced their research and reporting potentials, aiding scholars and practitioners, especially within the focus of victimology. Your text provides a detailed overview of the specifics of this national victimization survey (pages 68-75); you should read this material carefully to become familiar with the scope and usefulness of the measure. Pay attention to both the advantages and disadvantages of this particular self-report victimization survey.
Offender Self-Report Surveys
A third method of collection of data useful to the study of victimization is the Offender Self-Report Survey—although this resource is only briefly mentioned in the Karmen text. This survey revealed greater levels of crime than traditionally reported in previous government statistics. Though expensive, these types of surveys are frequently used by victimologists and criminologists. These surveys utilize a method of collecting crime-related data that involves asking a sample of the general population questions. Respondents to the survey are asked to provide information about their prior involvement in crime during a specified time period.
These surveys may be conducted through anonymous questionnaires, direct interviews in person, or through phone contact. Information can be requested concerning the volume of crime that respondents may have perpetrated, the specific types of these crimes, and, most importantly for our purposes, the background demographic characteristics of their victims, including the race, age, and gender of individual victims.
Again, the survey serves as an additive measure, because through it we are able to detect criminal acts—and the characteristics of the victims of those acts—that may neither have come to the attention of official authorities such as the police (UCR), nor have been uncovered through victimization surveys (NCVS). This is true because of the fact that significant numbers of crimes may not have been known to the individual victims of those crimes. Individuals may think that they have lost or misplaced items when they have actually been stolen. Many white-collar crimes against victims are unknown to those victims. Further, many crime victims may choose not to report their victimization even when they know that it has occurred.
The offender self-reports are very costly to perform and are frequently unreliable. Furthermore, they are usually performed on specific sub-sets of the population, rather than on subjects randomly selected from the total population. For example, historically these surveys have been administered to students, juvenile delinquents in custody, or to incarcerated criminals. However, there is no reason, other than financial cost, that these surveys could not be administered in the same way as the victimization self-report surveys. Your course text does not provide coverage on this third measure of crime data collection. However, should you desire more detailed information, I suggest that you consult an introductory text on criminology or criminal justice in which there is usually excellent coverage of offender self-report surveys. In the field of victimology, a particularly good text covering this measure is Crime Victims in Context, by Leslie W. Kennedy and Vincent F. Sacco (Roxbury Publishing Company, 1998), which I mentioned last week in Lesson 2. We are now going to move on to Lesson 4 and begin to view some of the fruits of these data collection methods. We are going to be using the data from these reports and surveys to help bring the “Big Picture” into focus.
LESSON 4
Victimization Rates
One of the first crime measures that followed the data development, especially from the self-reported victimization surveys, was the victimization rate. Following the procedures used to determine crime rates from UCR data, victimization rates are determined as fractions or ratios that can be used to project levels of risk for victimization. In these fractions, the numerator is determined by the number of victimizations in a given time period (usually one year); the denominator is determined by the number of persons in the population selected (usually the number of persons or households in the country). The ratios can be transformed into decimals by division, and the resultant number then multiplied by 1000 to obtain the victimization rate.
Computations of victimization rates allow victimologists to make comparisons on a number of variables. That is, what is the victimization rate of blacks compared to whites, males compared to females, one age group compared to another, one state or city compared to another, and so on. Rates also allow us to compare victimization risks over varying periods of time to determine if victimization is increasing or decreasing. They also enable us to determine victimization patterns in general and for specific crimes, and to answer the questions posed above for specific crimes such as murder or robbery. An example of this process is as follows:
Victimization Pattern of High Risk
Gender (Males)
Age (12-24 years old)
Family Income (Low)
Race (Blacks)
Ethnicity (Hispanics)
Occupation (Low Status)
A specific set of victimization rates is calculated and published annually by the Bureau of Justice Statistics as part of the National Crime Victimization Survey findings, in the same manner that the Federal Bureau of Investigation produces crime rates in its Uniform Crime Report. An example of such estimated victimization rates is reproduced as Table 3.1 in your Karmen text on p. 73.
Assessing Comparative Risks
Once we have developed the victimization rate, we can use it to assess comparative risk levels that certain individuals or groups may have for crime victimization in general as well as for specific crimes. In addition, victimization rates may be used to evaluate the probability of being harmed by criminal acts in comparison to being victimized by other harmful acts such as accidents, illnesses, natural disasters, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other negative life events. In this regard, your text author states:
“One purpose of studying comparative risks is to determine which types of threats (crimes, accidents, disease) merit greater precautionary measures by both individuals and government-sponsored campaigns” (Karmen, page 81).
The chances of being victimized by these other harmful events can be expressed by developing standardized rates such as the number of events per 100,000 people in the population. To illustrate this point, refer to Table 3.4 on page 82 of your text. Karmen compares the risk of death posed by crime versus by accidents and certain diseases. From this data, one can see that the probability of being a victim of a homicide is far less than that of the non-criminal life threats.
International Homicide, Rate Per 100,000 Population
A person is far more likely to suffer from an accident at home or at work than from an act of crime. Your author concludes that Americans should be more concerned with unsafe conditions at home, schools, work, and on the highways than with crime. While only 1 percent of Americans is likely to suffer from violent crime, 8 percent will experience accidents at home, 6 percent at work, and 2 percent while traveling on the road. This discussion helps us to put the risk of crime victimization into perspective.
We can also use the crime victimization rate to develop international comparisons. Data from the United Nations, World Health Organization, and international police organizations can be helpful in constructing cross-national comparisons of relative risks for victimizations. Your text author points out that the yields from such comparisons may provide clues for the general study of criminology as well as possible clues about the causes of criminal behavior and strategies for crime prevention and control. Data to date suggests that, when focusing on violent crime, the victimization rates in the U.S. are very high, while those in most industrialized, technologically advanced nations are very low.
Uncovering Victimization Patterns
In this next section of our lesson, we are going to be concerned with uncovering victimization patterns that identify differential risks for various types of individual crimes, such as murder and robbery. Although our focus is on these two types of individual crimes, it is important to remember that our search for patterns can be undertaken for any other individual type of crime. The chances of crime victimization are not uniform; they are more likely for some categories of individuals and less likely for others. Thus, victimologists are interested in constructing patterns within a victimization rate.
As your author states: “Searching for patterns means looking for regularities within a seemingly chaotic mass of information and finding predictability within apparently random events”. Variables used to deconstruct such patterns are those that are available and published by the various statistical surveys reviewed in Lesson 3, for example, demographic data on victims such as sex, age, race, marital status, income, occupation, social class, and area of residence.
When looking at the specific crime of murder, research has uncovered a pattern whereby the likelihood of victimization is largely determined by a pattern in which residence in metropolitan areas with high population density and poor economies represents high risk. Also of importance within this pattern is being male, Black and/or of Hispanic ethnicity, and being relatively young. Residence in Southern States as opposed to Northern or Midwestern States is also a high risk factor in this pattern. Recently, we have discovered that individuals engaged in drug dealing and individuals who routinely carry handguns are also characteristic of the high-risk pattern. Other things that we have learned through the awareness of victimization patterns include the following: that the vast majority of murders are intra-racial (in which victim and perpetrator are of the same race); that most males are murdered by other males, and most females are murdered by males; and that murders frequently occur between friends or acquaintances, disproportionately involving drug dealing and other illicit activities, and with the prevalent use of alcohol apparent. When focusing on the crime of robbery, patterns of high-risk victimization again include the existence of variables such as sex, race, ethnicity, age, family income, marital status, residence, and occupation. Your text author summarizes the variable risk pattern of robbery victims as follows:
…[M]en rather than women, minorities rather than members of the white majority, young persons more than middle-aged or elderly people, single or divorced individuals over married couples, poor people rather than those better off financially, city residents rather than people living in suburbs or small towns, and inhabitants of the west rather than the northeast (Karmen, pp. 101-102).
Projecting Cumulative Risks
As the last topic in this lesson, I would like to review the course text material on projecting cumulative risks for victimization. That is, I’d like to introduce the question: How do we estimate an individual’s lifetime likelihood of becoming a crime victim? When you have looked at the patterns of likely crime victims previously discussed in this lesson many of you may conclude that for you and your family and friends, the likelihood is rather low. But to put this picture in perspective, the Bureau of Justice Statistics has provided estimates of individual victimization risk during the course of an entire lifetime. From this data, it can be concluded that nearly all individuals will experience at least some victimization.
The data estimate that each individual during the course of his/her life will be a victim of theft and that three out of four people will be victims of an assault. Eight percent of all women will be raped (11 percent for black females) and 30 percent of the population will be robbed at least once. However, despite these high numbers for probability of individual victimization, the patterns of victimization over the course of a lifetime still hold true disproportionately for specific categories of citizens. Again, the variables race, sex, income, occupation, residence, etc., come into play.
Victimologists have developed outlines of the major determinants of variable vulnerability for crime victimization over the course of a lifetime. I have drawn from this material and developed the following summary outline that may be helpful to you in piecing together the major determinants of vulnerability.