Taking Crime Seriously: Playing the Weighting Game (original) (raw)

The global crime drop and changes in the distribution of victimisation

Crime Science, 2016

Over three decades crime counts in England and Wales, as throughout the Western world, have fallen. Less attention has been paid to the distribution of crime across households, though this is crucial in determining optimal distribution of limited policing resources in pursuing the aim of distributive justice. The writers have previously demonstrated that in England and Wales the distribution of crime victimisation has remained pretty much unchanged over the period of the crime drop. The present paper seeks to extend the study of changes in the distribution of victimisation over time using data from 25 countries contributing data to the International Crime Victimisation Survey (ICVS) sweeps (1989-2000). While fragmentary, the data mirror the trends discerned in England and Wales. The trends are not an artefact of the inclusion of particular countries in particular sweeps. The demographic, economical, geographical and social household characteristics associated with victimisation are consistent across time. The suggested policy implication is the need for greater emphasis on preventing multiple victimisation.

Violence and the crime drop

European Journal of Criminology, 2020

According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, violence fell dramatically between 1995 and 2013/14. To improve understanding of the fall in violent crime, this study examines long-term crime trends in England and Wales over the past two decades, by scrutinizing the trends in (a) stranger and acquaintance violence, (b) severity of violence, (c) age groups, and (d) sexes. It draws on nationally representative, weighted data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, and examines prevalence, incidence and crime concentration trends. The overall violence fall was driven by a decline in the victimization of young individuals and/or males perpetrated by acquaintances since 1995. Stranger and acquaintance violence followed different trajectories, with the former beginning to drop post 2003/4. Falls in both stranger and acquaintance violence incidence rates were led by a reduction in victims over time. Counting all incidents reported by the same victim (instead of capping at five in...

Constructions of crime data and criminal statistics: A critical reflection

2017

This chapter explores a number of interrelated questions about ‘crime levels’, ‘crime patterns’, and ‘crime trends’ and how they are measured. These range from what may sound like (but are not) straightforward empirical and methodological questions, such as ‘how much crime is there?’, ‘how is it changing?’ and ‘how do we know?’, to broader questions about the relationships between, on the one hand, the kinds of crime data which are collected and published and, on the other, changing perceptions of the nature of ‘the crime problem’ and policy demands arising from developments in the politics of crime control. The chapter considers the steep falls in crime rates that have been apparent globally over the past two decades (following a long period of increases) and questions whether it is possible to determine that there has been a real ‘crime drop’ given the problems inherent in measuring crime both consistently and reliably over time. It also identifies a decline in public trust in off...

Preventing Repeat Victimization

Crime and Justice, 1995

Revictimization or repeat victimization of people and places represent a large proportion of all victimization. Preventing revictimization may prevent a large proportion of all offenses. Repeat crimes are disproportionately likely in high-crime areas and in the period shortly after a crime-suggesting that efficient crime prevention might be achieved through rapid, transitory responses to victimization. The extent of revictimization is typically underestimated. Knowledge of revictimization patterns may provide bases for more effective prevention of domestic violence, burglary, car crimes, and other offenses. Quick response alarms, loaned to "high-risk" targets on a temporary basis, are one possible way forward for efficient crime prevention and offender detection. The phenomenon of revictimization has been recognized in the criminological literature for over two decades. Small percentages of the population, and of victims, suffer large percentages of all criminal victimizations. Only comparatively recently have the policy implications of repeat victimization begun to be recognized. If revictimization constitutes a large proportion of all victimization, then preventing revictimization will prevent a large proportion of all offenses. Focusing preventive resources on identified victims simultaneously uses past victimization as a justifiable rationale for allocation of crime prevention resources, opens up a new set of strategies for preventing crime, poten

Of targets and supertargets: a routine activity theory of high crime rates

2005

Empirical work has shown that high crime areas have disproportionate amounts of repeat victimisation. However, there is inadequate theoretical explanation. As a move towards a theory we consider a mathematical model of crime rates grounded in routine activity theory. Using the binomial distribution, victimisation is measured as a series of Bernoulli trials, with crime measured for each of incidence (crimes per capita), prevalence (victims per capita), and concentration (crimes per victim). The model is then revised so that a proportion of targets progress to become chronically victimised 'supertargets'. The notion of supertargets is introduced to refer to the 3 or 4 percent of chronically victimised targets that account for around 40 percent of victimisation. We demonstrate theory-testing relating to crime requires the inclusion of the crime concentration rate to incorporate repeat victimisation and indicate how mathematical modelling may, in turn, illuminate the crime concentration predictions of routine activity theory.

The Cambridge Crime Harm Index: Measuring Total Harm from Crime Based on Sentencing Guidelines

Policing, 2016

The logic of simply summing crimes of all kind into a single total has long been challenged as misleading. All crimes are not created equal. Counting them as if they are fosters distortion of risk assessments, resource allocation, and accountability. To solve this problem, Sherman (2007, 2010, 2011 and 2013) has offered a general proposal to create a weighted 'Crime Harm Index (CHI).' This article provides and explicates a detailed procedure for operationalizing this idea in UK: what we call the 'Cambridge CHI.' The new elements of the Cambridge CHI presented here are (1) the use of the 'starting point' in the national Sentencing Guidelines to define the number of days in prison for each offence type; (2) the exclusion of proactively detected, previously unreported offences, and (3) a comparative analysis of the Cambridge and other approaches to weighting crime harm, judged by a three-pronged test of democracy, reliability, and cost.

When is violence not a crime? Factors associated with victims’ labelling of violence as a crime

In press with International Review of Victimology Abstract Many people do not regard violence against them as a crime, but the factors that influence this response are unknown. Understanding how the ‘crimeworthiness’ of violence is interpreted allows an insight into how victims make sense of their experience, how communities influence attitudes towards victimisation and the reporting of crime to the police. A pooled cross-sectional sample of respondents to the Crime Survey for England and Wales was used to identify factors associated with the decision to label or discount a violent incident as a crime. Individual and neighbourhood-level effects were estimated using multilevel modelling. Harm, the perceived unjustness of the incident and victim-offender relational distance predicted labelling, while frequency of victimisation and victim initiation of the incident predicted discounting. Neighbourhood and neighbourhood crime had little effect on victims’ interpretations of the ‘crimeworthiness’ of violence. When victims interpret violence against them, they appear to do so unencumbered by social norms, but are influenced by the impact of the violence, the ‘prototypicality’ of the incident as a crime and their previous experience of violence. Keywords: victimisation; violence; crime; labelling; multilevel modelling; neighbourhood effects