I am forwarding Don Kate's comments on Mark's post.
Rich
Subj: Re: Subj: RE: UK Guardian: Row over figures as crime drops 5%
Date: 7/30/2004 2:00:00 PM Eastern Standard Time
Though I am not a member of this group, I shall give you my 2 cents worth.
1.
Victimization surveys were introduced because trends in crimes reported to the police are unreliable measures of trends in crime. .
2. Victimization data are regarded as the gold standard, counting
many crimes the official data miss.
Statement 1 is correct. Victimization surveys were instituted in the belief that they would provide better data than do crime victim reports to the police.
Statement 2 is incorrect. Victimization survey data give us a different source, but that produces confusion, not better data. Yes, lots of people surveyed claim to have been crime victims but did not report to the police. But when researchers focussed on surveys results for people who had reported crimes a startling fact emerged. Some people who had reported crimes to the police did not mention them when surveyed 8 months later. Possibly their shock and indignation at being attacked caused them to make a police report but 8 months later they had decided to suppress their crime experience and think about it no more.
That is just a speculation. The fact is that victimizatiuon surveys appear to have lacunae just as do police reports. We don't really know why. When data from both sources coincide we can be hopeful that they are leading us in the right direction. But when trend data from one of these sources contradicts trend data from the other it is risky to accept one over the other.
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