The Mismeasure of Crime
1st Edition
Published on 27. March 2002
Book
Paperback/Softback
224 pages
978-0-7619-8711-6 (ISBN)
Description
After a decade of steady decline, the appearance of conflicting reports regarding crime statistics has led many to call into question the accuracy of the current methods used to compile these statistics. Because the measurement of social phenomena involves human decisions, there are inevitably errors made. This book aims to identify and examine the nature of these errors so that social scientists, legislators, and the general public will be able to conduct a healthy dialogue on the topic in order to remedy some of the problems.
Before the book goes into much contemporary detail, historical measures of crime are given an overview. The authors then follow with chapters on the three most common methods used to report crime. Official data, self report, and victimization studies are analyzed in depth in order to discuss the specific errors that can occur in each type of measurement. The final chapter of the book describes ways that these measures can be applied to specific situations. The end result is the formation of a clearer picture of the impact these measures can have on the formation of crime prevention and control policies.
Before the book goes into much contemporary detail, historical measures of crime are given an overview. The authors then follow with chapters on the three most common methods used to report crime. Official data, self report, and victimization studies are analyzed in depth in order to discuss the specific errors that can occur in each type of measurement. The final chapter of the book describes ways that these measures can be applied to specific situations. The end result is the formation of a clearer picture of the impact these measures can have on the formation of crime prevention and control policies.
Reviews / Votes
"The Mismeasure of Crime provides a profound and critical examination of the history of crime measurement (or rather mismeasurement) in order to prompt coherent discourse on the resolution of problems plaguing currently used measures. . . the book provides a clearer picture of the impact these measures can have on the formation of crime prevention and control policies. The book is a wealthy source in discussing specific errors about each of the most common methods used to report crime. Moreover, the book does succeed in making the reader a more "savvy consumer" and better "evaluator" of current statistical methods." * JOURNAL OF CRIME AND JUSTICE *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Thousand Oaks
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
652 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7619-8711-6 (9780761987116)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
New editions
Clayton Mosher | Terance D. Miethe | Timothy Christopher Hart
The Mismeasure of Crime
Book
01/2011
2nd Edition
SAGE Publications Inc
€117.10
Shipment within 10-20 days
Persons
Clayton Mosher received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Toronto, and is currently a Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Sociology at Washington State University Vancouver. He is the author of several books and articles in the areas of inequality in criminal justice system processing, drugs and drug policies, and the impact of prison construction on employment. Besides co-authoring the Second Edition of Drugs and Drug Policy, he co-authored the Second Edition of The Mismeasure of Crime (SAGE, 2012) with Terance Miethe and Timothy Hart. Terance Miethe received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Washington State University, and is currently a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. He is the author of several books and research articles in the areas of criminal victimization, theories of crime, and criminal processing.
Dretha M. Phillips is Senior Research Associate in the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center at Washington State University, Vancouver. Her criminal justice/criminology research experience is wide-ranging. It includes conducting face-to-face interviews with arrestees in jails, evaluating in-prison substance abuse treatment programs and community diversion initiatives for convicted offenders, and designing and analyzing data from public surveys on sex offender community notification laws.
Dretha M. Phillips is Senior Research Associate in the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center at Washington State University, Vancouver. Her criminal justice/criminology research experience is wide-ranging. It includes conducting face-to-face interviews with arrestees in jails, evaluating in-prison substance abuse treatment programs and community diversion initiatives for convicted offenders, and designing and analyzing data from public surveys on sex offender community notification laws.
Content
1. Introduction
2. The History of Measuring Crime
3. Official Crime Data
4. Self Report Studies
5. Victimization Surveys
6. Crime Patterns, Evaluating Crime Policies, and Criminological Theories
2. The History of Measuring Crime
3. Official Crime Data
4. Self Report Studies
5. Victimization Surveys
6. Crime Patterns, Evaluating Crime Policies, and Criminological Theories