The Reliability of Criminal Statistics

Sutherland, Edwin H.; Vechten, C. C. Van

doi:10.2307/1135675

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Even absent the problem of political agendas, contemporary investigations suffered from limited or poor-quality data. Only a select number of jurisdictions regularly compiled police and court records, and the nativity information in these data was often suspect (Sutherland and Van Vechten 1934). The most complete data came from special censuses of the population in penal institutions conducted by the Census Bureau, the so-called prison censuses.…”

Section: Immigration In the Early Twentieth Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

Immigration, crime, and incarceration in early twentieth-century America

Moehling

Piehl

2009

Demography

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The major government commissions on immigration and crime in the early twentieth century relied on evidence that suffered from aggregation bias and the absence of accurate population data, which led them to present partial and sometimes misleading views of the immigrant-native criminality comparison. With improved data and methods, we find that in 1904, prison commitment rates for more serious crimes were quite similar by nativity for all ages except ages 18 and 19, for which the commitment rate for immigrants was higher than for the native-born. By 1930, immigrants were less likely than natives to be committed to prisons at all ages 20 and older, but this advantage disappears when one looks at commitments for violent offenses. The time series pattern reflects a growing gap between natives and immigrants at older ages, one that was driven by sharp increases in the commitment rates of the native-born, while commitment rates for the foreign-born were remarkably stable.

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Section: Immigration In the Early Twentieth Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

Immigration, crime, and incarceration in early twentieth-century America

Moehling

Piehl

2009

Demography

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“…Even absent the problem of political agendas, contemporary investigations of immigration and crime suffered from having limited or poor quality data. Only a select number of jurisdictions regularly compiled data on police and court records, and the nativity information in these data was often suspect (Sutherland and Van Vechten 1934). The most complete data came from special censuses of the population in penal institutions conducted by the Census Bureau, the so-called Prison Censuses.…”

Section: Theory and Evidence On The Link From Immigration To Crimementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In 1904, the Census Bureau conducted its first special enumeration of prisoners separate from the population census. Data were collected on the population in penal institutions on June 30, 1904 as well as on all commitments to these institutions between January 1, 1904 and 5 A study of police records in the 1930s, in fact, found that street cops often confused religion and country of birth (Sutherland and Van Vechten 1934). Moreover, the prison census data may suffer less from the impact of racial and ethnic prejudice than arrest records, as the prison censuses only included individuals who had been sentenced to penal institutions.…”

Section: The Prison Censusesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Immigration and Crime in Early 20th Century America

Moehling

Piehl

2007

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Research on crime in the late 20th century has consistently shown that immigrants have lower rates of involvement in criminal activity than natives. We find that a century ago immigrants may have been slightly more likely than natives to be involved in crime. In 1904 prison commitment rates for more serious crimes were quite similar by nativity for all ages except ages 18 and 19 when the commitment rate for immigrants was higher than for the native born. By 1930, immigrants were less likely than natives to be committed to prisons at all ages 20 and older. But this advantage disappears when one looks at commitments for violent offenses. Aggregation bias and the absence of accurate population data meant that analysts at the time missed these important features of the immigrant-native incarceration comparison. The relative decline of the criminality of the foreign born reflected a growing gap between natives and immigrants at older ages, one that was driven by sharp increases in the commitment rates of the native born, while commitment rates for the foreign born were remarkably stable.

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“…To our knowledge there is no literature or statistics on name changing in the general population. In the offender population the use of aliases is frequent with a reported incidence of between 17% and 45.8% (Sutherland et al, 1934;Glueck and Glueck, 1937;Hartman, 1951;Boshier, 1977;Harry, 1986Harry, , 1992. Study samples, however, are not necessarily representative.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%