Taking Crime Seriously: Playing the Weighting Game

Ignatans, Dainis; Pease, Ken

doi:10.1093/police/pav029

Cited by 37 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…This is particularly surprising given the remarkable dynamism that the measurement of crime seriousness has recently experienced (e.g. Ignatans and Pease 2016;Sherman et al, 2016), an area of research from which much could be learnt.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Have The England and Wales Guidelines Affected Sentencing Severity? An Empirical Analysis Using a Scale of Severity and Time-Series Analyses

Pina-Sánchez

Gosling

Chung

et al. 2019

The British Journal of Criminology

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Sentence severity has increased in England and Wales in recent years. The causes of the increase remain unclear. One possible explanation relates to the introduction of sentencing guidelines, which seem to coincide in time with the increase in sentence severity. To date, investigations of this hypothesis have been limited to simple exploratory analyses or to specific offences. We use a new scale of sentence severity-developed using Thurstone scaling and the participation of 21 magistrates-and time-series modelling to explore whether a causal effect can be attributed to seven different guidelines. We corroborate the existence of an increase in sentence severity; however, we do not find conclusive evidence pointing at the guidelines having caused it.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Have The England and Wales Guidelines Affected Sentencing Severity? An Empirical Analysis Using a Scale of Severity and Time-Series Analyses

Pina-Sánchez

Gosling

Chung

et al. 2019

The British Journal of Criminology

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show abstract

“…This is an old idea in criminology, developed as a more meaningful way of reporting crime than traditional counts of all crime types given equal weight. Early efforts by Sellin and Wolfgang (1964) and Wolfgang et al (1985) to measure harm by public opinion, however, were severely limited by the method of 'rank ordering,' which does not distinguish how much more serious (or harmful) one offence is over another (see also Ignatans and Pease 2016).…”

Section: Claims and Facts About Escalation In Intimate Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using the sentencing starting point has the advantage of avoiding the consideration of other factors when sentencing. However, Ignatans and Pease (2016) argue this approach is limited in that it removes judgements about severity from the victims of crime. Because the guidelines are prepared by a group of experts with experience of higher courts and detected crimes, Ignatans and Pease (2016) suggest that sentence starting points might not be a true reflection of harm as victims see it.…”

Section: Claims and Facts About Escalation In Intimate Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Targeting Escalation of Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence from 52,000 Offenders

Barnham

Barnes

Sherman

2017

Camb J Evid Based Polic

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Research Question Does the severity or frequency of intimate partner violence or abuse reported to police increase over time, once a unique perpetrator-victim couple has come into contact with police in Thames Valley, UK? Data A total of 140,998 recent (non-historical) incidents of intimate partner violence or abuse reported to Thames Valley Police in 2010-2015 were identified, with 52,296 unique perpetrators for whom a standard 731-day observation period was possible after each perpetrator's first incident was reported in the intake period from 1 January 2010 through 31 December. Duplicate entries were eliminated and standard eligibility criteria were assured by data cleaning from the NICHE records management system of Thames Valley Police. Methods All non-crime incidents or reports of crime against intimate partners were coded by the Cambridge Crime Harm Index (CHI) with the sum of total days of recommended imprisonment for each offence (as the guideline starting point for sentencing) summed across all offences for each offender (Sherman et al. in Policing, 10(3), 171-183, 2016), with CHI scores for each successive incident plotted in sequence. Prevalence and frequency of repeat police contacts were also computed for each perpetrator, as well as the conditional probability of each new offence given the number of prior offences. Findings Most perpetrators identified in the 52,296 initial reports (77.6%) had no report of crime after the initial report. A further 21.2% had crime harm totals of less than 10 days of recommended prison time, with only 893 (1.7%) of the total universe of 4 years' worth of perpetrators who had a reported crime harm total over offences with a DOI 10.1007/s41887-017-0008-9 recommendation of over 10 days sentencing in the 731-day observation period. A slightly larger 'power few' of 3% of perpetrators accounted for 90% of total intimate partner abuse crime harm inflicted by all perpetrators, while 97% of perpetrators produced only 10% of total crime harm. Overall, amongst the few who had numerous repeat incidents, there was increasing frequency but no evidence of increasing seriousness of harm caused to victims. The 100 most harmful offenders in 2010 maintained a high (but greatly decreased) level of harm in 2011, but on average were very low harm offenders in [2012][2013][2014][2015].Conclusions This analysis suggests that the intimate partner abuser population is highly segmented in Thames Valley, with a small power few inflicting most of the harm. While the most serious offenders may remain difficult to identify prospectively, any valid prediction model could help to prevent a substantial amount of crime harm against intimate partners. Investing in such prediction methods may do more to help victims than an undifferentiated strategy putting most resources into low-risk cases.

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“…A closer look into the distribution of victimisation amongst those most victimised reveals that just one per cent of the population is now accounting for over a half of all personal victimisation (52% in 2012 up from 42% in 1994), and over a quarter of property crime (33% up from 22%) and vehicle related victimisation (27% up from 16% in 1994) (Ignatans & Pease, 2016a). The total burden of crime has declined but the most victimised are accounting for an increasing proportion of that burden.…”

Section: Is There Less Of It About?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Whatever happened to repeat victimisation?

Pease

Ignatans

Batty

2018

Crime Prev Community Saf

Self Cite

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Crime is concentrated at the individual level (hot dots) as well as at area level (hot spots). Research on repeat victimisation affords rich prevention opportunities but has been increasingly marginalised by UK policy makers and implementers despite repeat victims accounting for increasing proportions of total crime. The present paper advocates a resurgence of interest in research and initiatives based on the prevention of repeat victimisation.

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Taking Crime Seriously: Playing the Weighting Game

Cited by 37 publications

References 12 publications

Have The England and Wales Guidelines Affected Sentencing Severity? An Empirical Analysis Using a Scale of Severity and Time-Series Analyses

Have The England and Wales Guidelines Affected Sentencing Severity? An Empirical Analysis Using a Scale of Severity and Time-Series Analyses

Targeting Escalation of Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence from 52,000 Offenders

Whatever happened to repeat victimisation?

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