Subject and Course Guides: CRCJ 2334 Intro to Criminal Justice System: Thinking critically about crime statistics

Strengths and Weaknesses- Always ask "Why?"

Statistics should be gathered and analyzed according to established methods that have been proven effective over time. This is called the methodology. Many authors of scholarly research articles will have a section titled "methodology" in their final paper. A simple question you can ask yourself that will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of any given methodology is WHY:

Why did the researcher/organization choose this method? The reasons will reveal the perceived strengths of the methodology, and conversely the weaknesses of others.
Why were changes made? If changes were made to a particular method or standard that usually means that some weakness was discovered and needs to be corrected. Occasionally there are other forces at work such as political motivations, economic factors, or logistical challenges which are also helpful to understand.
Why is this required? Why was this law enacted? For things like the Clery Act, for example, it can be helpful to research the motivations behind passing the act or law. This will reveal the weaknesses of previous methods or standards and the expected strengths of the new method or standard.

How to think about crime statistics

Questions to ask yourself when thinking about statistics:

Who is likely or unlikely to participate in this survey? Or who is likely to be counted or not counted by this method?
Would factors like gender identity, cultural shame, economic disadvantage, racial bias, citizenship status, or other contextual elements affect the way this crime is documented or reported?
What agency or entity is gathering or reporting this information? Just in the Dallas-Fort Worth area there are multiple overlapping jurisdictions and law enforcement organizations including:
- College campuses (ex. UTA)
- Transportation systems (ex. DART)
- Counties (ex. Tarrant)
- Cities (ex. City of Arlington)
- Military Bases (ex. Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth)
- State-wide law enforcement agencies (ex. Texas Rangers, Texas Game Wardens)
- Nationwide-law enforcement agencies (ex. FBI, United States Postal Inspection Service)
Are there conflicts of interest? For example, the function of police departments is to lower the rate of crime. Is there a problem with a police department collecting and reporting its own crime data? What mechanisms ensure that data is reported accurately in these situations?

Texas Game Warden Field Notes
Before you look at this site, think about what laws you think a game warden (a wildlife officer) might enforce and what kinds of crimes they encounter. Does your idea of what a game warden does match these reports?
U.S. Food & Drug Administration- Office of Criminal Investigations
Not all crime is violent crime. Many types of fraud cases are investigated by federal agencies such as the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). If you wanted to study these types of crimes, what kinds of statistics would be most useful and where would you find them?

Crime Statistics- Background Reading

The Handbook of Measurement Issues in Criminology and Criminal Justice by Beth M. Huebner (Editor); Timothy S. Bynum (Editor)
ISBN: 1118868765
Publication Date: 2016-04-28
This work includes chapters on the measurement of criminal typologies, the offenders, offending and victimization, criminal justice organizations, and specialized measurement techniques. Each chapter is written by experts in the field and they provide an excellent survey of the literature in the relevant area. More importantly, each chapter provides a description of the various methodological and substantive challenges presented in conducting research on these issues and denotes possible solutions to these dilemmas.
Statistics for Criminal Justice and Criminology in Practice and Research by Jack Fitzgerald; Jerry Fitzgerald
ISBN: 1412993687
Publication Date: 2013-01-17
Statistics for Criminal Justice and Criminology in Practice and Research--by Jack Fitzgerald and Jerry Fitzgerald--is an engaging and comprehensive introduction to the study of basic statistics for students pursuing careers as practitioners or researchers in both Criminal Justice and Criminology programs. This student-friendly text shows how to calculate a variety of descriptive and inferential statistics, recognize which statistics are appropriate for particular data analysis situations, and perform hypothesis tests using inferential statistics. It encourages readers to think critically about the strengths and limitations of the statistics they are calculating, as well as how they may be misapplied and misleading.
How Countries Count Crime by John A. Eterno (Editor); Arvind Verma (Editor); Eli B. Silverman (Editor)
ISBN: 9781003045991
Publication Date: 2022-09-30
This edited collection illuminates the weaknesses and strengths of crime reporting across a wide range of countries, with a focus on democratic countries in which the police bear some accountability to citizens.With chapters written by native authors who are experts on the practices of their respective countries, the book explores practices in 15 different countries across the globe.

Measuring Domestic and Intimate Partner Violence (book chapter)
The chapter presents a variety of facts related to domestic and intimate partner violence and ways to evaluate their validity, accuracy and reliability. These sources reflect both official and unofficial measures, including self-report surveys, family violence surveys, national violence against women surveys, national crime victimization surveys, uniform crime reports, national incident-based reports and UCR supplemental homicide reports, among others.
Examining the Paradox of Crime Reporting: Are Disadvantaged Victims More Likely to Report to the Police?
This study uses an intersectional approach to examine the "paradox" that disadvantaged victims often mobilize the police, despite their distrust and lack of confidence in the law. Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (1994–2016) were analyzed using logistic regression to model the predicted probabilities of police notification by victims of crime.
The Future of Crime Data
In this article, we describe the nation's move to a crime-reporting system that is exclusively incident based. Such a change presents challenges for the 'crime-reporting pipeline' and for researchers in managing and analyzing these more intricate data. We highlight the shortcomings of the dominant system, the Uniform Crime Reporting Program's Summary Reporting System (SRS), and argue that the advantages of the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) qualify it to replace the SRS as one of the nation's primary sources for tracking and measuring crime. NIBRS is also discussed in light of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), a source that complements a system that relies on law-enforcement-generated crime data.
The evolving role of self-report surveys of criminal victimization in a system of statistics on crime and the administration of justice
The specific role of victimization surveys in a statistical system will depend upon the credibility and technical proficiencies of the police, court and correctional agencies. This paper describes the preferred role of victimization surveys and the technological challenges in playing that role under different conditions of legitimacy and technical capabilities.
The Nation's Two Crime Measures, 2011-2020
This report presents statistics from BJS’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program Summary Reporting System (UCR SRS), both of which measure the magnitude, nature, and impact of crime in the nation. The NCVS was established in 1973 to complement the UCR SRS and measure crimes not reported to police. The NCVS and UCR SRS have different purposes, use different methods, and focus on different aspects of crime. The information they produce together provides a comprehensive understanding of crime in the United States. This report presents NCVS and UCR SRS statistical estimates as defined by each program.
The National Crime Victimization Survey and National Incident-Based Reporting System: A complementary picture of crime in 2022
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) measure a set of criminal offenses that overlap but are not identical, which leads to differences in estimates between the two data sources. The NCVS interviews persons age 12 or older about crimes both reported and not reported to police, and NIBRS collects data on crime recorded by law enforcement agencies. Taken together, these two measures provide a comprehensive picture of crime in the United States. The publication compares crime estimates from these two data sources and provides an overview of the similarities and differences between the collections.

Non-Scholarly Sources

The sites listed below include non-profits, media sites, and books written for a general audience- they are NOT scholarly sources. However, that does not automatically mean that the information provided is inaccurate or wrong.

Think of these sources like the movie version of a book- sometimes the movie holds very closely to the events and themes of the source material, and sometimes it seems like the director never read the book at all. You must use critical thinking and comparison with other sources to decide how accurate or well-supported their arguments are.

In addition to asking yourself the questions below, scan for keywords you encounter that can be used to research scholarly sources.

What is the mission statement or goal of the organization?
Who compiled the information? What are their credentials or area of expertise?
What kinds of sources do they cite? Academic? News articles? Do they not provide citations at all?
Can you find the raw data they used to make their claims? Is it clear what they did with the data to come to their conclusions?

Thurgood Marshall Institute- The truth behind crime statistics
Vera- Understanding national crime data
The Brennan Center- Understanding the FBI's 2021 crime data
Dallas Express- FBI's National Crime Data Paints an Incomplete Picture
This article is a good example of how the media reports on crime data. For each fact that is presented take a moment to trace that fact back to its source. What do you think about how the data has been presented in the Dallas Express article?

Damned Lies and Statistics by Joel Best
ISBN: 9780520274709
Publication Date: 2012-08-07
Since its publication ten years ago, Damned Lies and Statistics has emerged as the go-to handbook for spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers.
Statistics: a very short introduction by David J. Hand
ISBN: 1281975710
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Modern statistics is very different from the dry and dusty discipline of the popular imagination. In its place is an exciting subject which uses deep theory and powerful software tools to shed light and enable understanding. Aimed at readers with no prior mathematical knowledge, this Very Short Introduction explores and explains how statistics work, and how we can decipher them.