The Basis of a Crime Index

Abstract

5it has been suggested that there might be a possibility that private organizations such as insurance companies, commercial establishments, etc., might

Conviction Statistics as an Indicator of Crime Trends in Europe from 1990 to 2006

“…More than 35 years later, this idea was presented in a graphic way by the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (1967: 8-9), which represented the criminal justice system as a funnel in which the number of cases decreases -because some cases are removed as they are, for example, unknown to the police or because the police, the prosecutors or the courts cannot solve them-as the process advances. 4 In order to understand the position of Sellin (1931), one must place it in its historical and geographical context, which corresponds to the period in which the Uniform Crime Reporting system (UCR) was created in the United States. One of the main decisions that had to be taken at that moment was whether to use court or police data as a basis for the UCR, which was meant to be the first comprehensive collection of criminal data at the national level.…”

“…Thus, in 1930, the national police statistics of the United States were born. Sellin (1931) published his article immediately after that, taking position in the debate about the validity of police and conviction statistics, and suggesting indirectly the way in which the future crime index elaborated on the basis of the data collected for the URC -that he mentions in page 346, note 22-could be elaborated. This can be clearly seen in the sentence that Sellin (1931) wrote immediately after the one that was going to become his dictum: "In other words, police statistics, particularly those of 'crimes known to the police' are most likely to furnish a good basis for a crime index".…”

“…Sellin (1931) published his article immediately after that, taking position in the debate about the validity of police and conviction statistics, and suggesting indirectly the way in which the future crime index elaborated on the basis of the data collected for the URC -that he mentions in page 346, note 22-could be elaborated. This can be clearly seen in the sentence that Sellin (1931) wrote immediately after the one that was going to become his dictum: "In other words, police statistics, particularly those of 'crimes known to the police' are most likely to furnish a good basis for a crime index". That sentence is accompanied by a footnote stating that he was "in complete disagreement" with the Report of the Commission for the comparative study of criminal statistics of various countries, presented in the 18th session of the International Institute of Statistics -held in Warsaw, in 1930-, which concluded that "for the purpose of determining the status and the movement of criminality in each country, it is the statistics of crimes objectively determined by irrevocable and definitive sentences which should be submitted to study" (Sellin 1931: 346).…”

“…criminality-, one can say that conviction statistics are less valid than police statistics. As we have seen, this was the main message of Sellin (1931), although the language of research has evolved and the concept of value, used by him, has been replaced by the concept of validity, and it has been complemented with the concept of reliability. Police statistics are more valid than conviction statistics because they are closer to the offence itself.…”

The Psychopath Next Door: How Similar Are They to Those Behind Bars? Criminality, Executive Functioning, and Emotion Processing in 'Noncriminal' Psychopathy

“…Implied in this definition is the view that behaviours are still deemed 'criminal' even if they are not officially documented and prosecuted. Criminologists have long acknowledged the limitations of official convictions and official records in estimating criminal activity (Erickson & Empey, 1963;Sellin, 1931;Sutherland, 1934), with research showing that criminal activity is more prevalent than indicated by official conviction records (Erickson & Empey, 1963;Porterfield, 1943). To overcome these limitations researchers have implemented self-report delinquency scales to estimate the prevalence of criminal activity in the general community (Krohn, Thornberry, Gibson, & Baldwin, 2010).…”