Understanding and Preventing Violence Volume 1 (1993) / Chapter Skim
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2 Patterns of Violence in American Society
2 Patterns of Violence in American Society
Pages 42-98
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From page 42... ...
DIFFICULTIES OF MEASUREMENT There is no single way to define, classify, and measure the domain of violent events, because each counting system involves some evaluation of people's observations and reports of what they
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From page 43... ...
The difficulties of measuring violence are explained more fully in Appendix B Differences In Domain Both NCS and UCR data produce national counts of three types of nonfatal violent crimes: forcible rape,1 robbery, and aggravated
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From page 44... ...
PATTERNS OF VIOLENCE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY 44 TABLE 2-1 Comparison of Violence Measurement Systems System National Crime Uniform Crime National Mortality Characteristic Survey Reports Statistics Source • Sample of • Incident reports of • Death certificates U.S. participating police households agencies Domain • Nonfatal • Violent crimes • Homicides violent known to police victimizations including homicides of persons aged and violence during 12+ crimes against organizations Unit of Count • Most serious • Most serious crime • Deaths victimization during event during event Timing • Events • Collected • Collected occurring in 6- contemporaneously contemporaneously month reference period • Published • Published annually • Published annually, annually with with 2-year time lag 10- to 12-month lag Sources of • Respondent • Victim/witness • Medical examiner Discretion/ recall, decision to report to judgment Error construction as police and victimization, discretionary police and choice to detection recount • Interviewer • Police judgment determination that crime occurred • Agency rules • Counting rules for counting
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From page 45... ...
Simple assaults, the largest and least serious category of violent victimizations in NCS data, are not counted as index crimes by UCR. Homicides are counted in both UCR and NCHS national mortality statistics.
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From page 46... ...
But even the NCHS counts are influenced by medical examiners' complex and subtle judgments, which are themselves subject to error. Counts of nonfatal violent events are affected by the interactions of errors and discretion by both the statistical agencies and the victims of violence.
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From page 47... ...
Two comparisons explained more fully in Appendix B indicate that even after reporting a forcible rape, robbery, or assault to the police, some respondents fail to recount them to NCS interviewers. First, the UCR forcible rape count substantially exceeds the number that "should" have been reported, according to NCS data on the number of forcible rapes and the fraction of these reported
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From page 48... ...
Reiss (1985:166-167) computed a crude estimate that the true San Jose aggravated assault rate was approximately double the NCS rate and triple the rate estimated from police reports.
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From page 49... ...
For nonfatal violent crimes, the UCR program currently reports no information beyond occurrence of the event and place of occurrence in the years for which national data are available.3 The Supplementary Homicide Reports tabulate limited additional information on victims' and offenders' demographic characteristics (if the offender is known) , on victim-offender relationships, on circumstances of the event (e.g., committed in the course of a crime)
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The facts are, unfortunately, more complex and simple generalizations are quite misleading. Historical Trends in Homicide Violent crime rates have fluctuated considerably throughout this century.
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, however, available evidence does not permit us to separate the effects of family, school, and neighborhood. Trends since 1979-1981 in homicide and nonfatal violent crime rates are examined in more detail later in this chapter.
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. Based on reporting to the World Health Figure 2-2 Crude homicide rates for selected countries, most recent year for which data are available.
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From page 53... ...
. It allows comparisons between the United States and 15 other countries for the violent crimes of robbery, forcible rape, and assaults.
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From page 54... ...
National Estimates In 1990 the National Crime Survey reported an estimated 34,403,610 personal and household crime victimizations.4 Of these, 17 percent were attempted or completed violent crimes -- 8 percent if one excludes simple assault.5 In considering only the 18,984,120 attempted or completed personal victimizations reported, about 32 percent were violent -- just over 6 million. Of these, just over half were simple assaults, the least serious violent offense (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1992: Table 1a)
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From page 55... ...
Historically, societal sanctions for crimes yielded the rank order of seriousness reflected in the rows of Table 2-2: murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault. The UCR column of the table illustrates the inverse seriousness/frequency relationship for the four most serious violent crime types.
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From page 56... ...
. c Forcible rape rates calculated for female population only (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1990: Appendix III p.
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From page 57... ...
Research is needed to learn more about the relationships that link reporting and self-protective behavior to characteristics of violent events for all violent crimes. Especially for the crimes of forcible rape and robbery, such studies should investigate how victim compliance under threat affects injury, completion, and reporting rates.
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From page 58... ...
PATTERNS OF VIOLENCE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY 58 TABLE 2-3 Number and Percent Distribution of Victimizations, by Sector and Type of Crime, 1990 Sector and Type of Number Percentage of Crimes Total Persons Crime Within Sector Personal sector 18,984,120 100.0 203,273,870 Crimes of violence 6,006,790 31.7 Completed 2,421,530 12.8 Attempted 3,587,260 18.8 Rape 130,260 0.7 Completed 62,830 0.3 Attempted 67,430 0.4 Robbery 1,149,710 6.1 Completed 800,510 4.2 With injury 286,020 1.5 From serious assault 123,740 0.7 From minor assault 162,280 0.9 Without injury 514,480 2.7 Attempted 349,190 1.8 With injury 110,380 0.6 From serious assault 43,930 0.2 From minor assault 66,440 0.4 Assault 4,728,610 24.9 Aggravated 1,600,670 8.4 Completed with injury 627,000 3.3 Attempted with weapon 973,660 5.1 Simple 3,128,130 16.5 Completed with injury 931,170 4.9 Attempted without 2,196,960 11.6 weapon Crimes of theft 12,975,320 68.3 Completed 12,154,550 64.0 Attempted 820,760 4.3 Personal larceny with 637,010 3.4 contact Purse snatching 165,490 0.9 Completed 124,010 0.7 Attempted 41,470 0.2 Pocket picking 471,520 2.5 Personal larceny without 12,338,319 65.0 contact Completed 11,559,010 60.9 Less than $50 4,592,470 24.2 $50 or more 6,452,940 34.0 Amount not available 513,590 2.7 Attempted 779,290 4.1
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From page 59... ...
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (1989a: Table 4) reported the distribution of injury severity and level of medical care received by injured victims for violent crimes in the United States, aggregated for the years 1979 to 1986.10 The bulk of the injuries -- 83 percent -- were considered minor in severity.
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From page 60... ...
Loss of property in violent crimes is another way in which violence imposes economic harm. Cost estimates prepared for the panel are $54,100 per attempted or completed forcible rape, $19,200 per robbery, and $16,500 per assault (Cohen et al., Volume 4)
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From page 61... ...
Victim characteristics are discussed in this section, and offender characteristics in the next. Risks of Violent Victimization What is the risk of becoming a victim of a violent crime?
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From page 62... ...
The panel recommends that ways be developed to measure the lifetime risk of nonfatal violent victimizations, especially risks of injury by serious assault, for different groups of people in the population. Homicide Usable estimates of lifetime risk have been calculated for homicide (Loftin and Wiersma, 1991)
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From page 63... ...
One major unresolved question is why the homicide death rate is so high for blacks at all ages, especially black males (see Griffin and Bell, 1989)
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From page 64... ...
. The UCR Supplementary Homicide Report discloses that most victims in single offender-single victim homicides are slain by an offender of the same ethnic status:12 86 percent of white victims and 93 percent of black victims in 1990.
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From page 65... ...
Adjusting annual death rates by age,13 however, discloses significant variations in risk by gender and ethnic status. In the United States, the relative risk of death by motor vehicle accident varies primarily by gender, and the risks of homicide and suicide vary primarily by ethnic status.
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From page 66... ...
. b Source: National Center for Health Statistics (1991: Part A)
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From page 67... ...
The aggregate rate for violent victimizations calculated from the NCS count was more than triple the UCR count of violent crimes known to the police. Previously discussed differences in the way the two systems classify and
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From page 68... ...
The UCR is also likely to undercount incidents involving intimates and appears to undercount forcible rape attempts. The other difference worth noting is that for robbery and aggravated assault in 1990, the ratios of UCR to NCS counts are about 7 percentage points higher than the fractions of NCS respondents who claim to have reported those crimes to the police.
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From page 69... ...
and declines substantially with age, to 3-4 per 1,000 at age 65 and older. This declining risk of victimization by age holds for the major violent crimes of forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault, with substantially higher rates below than above age 25.
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From page 70... ...
. Excluding simple assaults from the violent crime rate, the rate of violent crime (forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault)
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From page 71... ...
They are most overrepresented in the most serious violent crimes of homicide, forcible rape, and robbery (Table 2-5)
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From page 72... ...
They accounted for a higher proportion of those arrested for assaults: 13 percent for aggravated assault and 16 percent for simple assaults. In 1990, arrestees for violent crimes were somewhat older on average than victims, with more falling in the age range of 25–29 than in any other.
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PATTERNS OF VIOLENCE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY 73 Figure 2-6A Arrest rates for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, 1990. Figure 2-6B Arrest rates for forcible rape, 1990.
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PATTERNS OF VIOLENCE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY 74 Figure 2-6C Arrest rates for robbery, 1990. Figure 2-6D Arrest rates for aggravated assault, 1990.
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Robbery was most likely to be committed with others: in 1990 about 48 of every 100 completed robberies involved co-offenders. Although the majority of violent crimes involve a single offender, cooffending substantially increases the number of people involved in violent victimizations.
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From page 76... ...
This pattern is sometimes erroneously interpreted as evidence of escalation from nonviolent to violent crime, or as a demonstration that certain arrest patterns predict subsequent violent crimes. In fact, by most measures, predictions of future violent behavior from arrest records have proven highly inaccurate (Monahan, 1988; Piper, 1985)
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From page 77... ...
In these hypothetical circumstances, 78 percent of all violent events would involve a white offender and victim, 21 percent would cross racial lines, and only 1 percent would involve a black offender and victim. According to the 1987 National Crime Survey (calculated from Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1989b: Table 43)
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From page 78... ...
The Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 requires the UCR program to begin counting bias crimes and specifies that violent attacks, intimidation, arson, and property damage "that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity" are all considered to be violent bias crimes. New state and local statutes that prescribe enhanced sentences for bias crimes define them in fairly similar terms.
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From page 79... ...
For violent crimes that do not end in death, a preexisting relationship between victim and offender is less likely, yet there is variation by type of crime. Of all nonfatal violent crime types, forcible rapes are most likely to involve intimates or acquaintances (61%)
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From page 81... ...
The figure also shows that, over a 17-year period, differences in the relative safety of communities of different sizes persisted through an overall increase in violent crime reported to the police. Annual changes in violent crime rates vary from year to year by size of community, yet overall the rise in rate is greater for large places than for small ones.
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From page 82... ...
In Figures 2-8B to 2-8E we present the rates of specific violent crimes over time for cities of different sizes. Forcible rape represents an exception to the general relationship between city size and crime rates -- forcible rape rates in cities with populations between 250,000 and 999,999 exceed those in larger cities through almost the entire period.
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From page 83... ...
Nevertheless, a striking feature of the forcible rape pattern is the relatively low rate for the largest cities, and its restricted range of variation by city size (Figure 2-8C)
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Figure 2-8C Forcible rape rate by city size. Cities of all sizes showed an increase over time in the forcible
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From page 85... ...
. Robbery The basic pattern of variation by city size for robbery is similar to that observed for all violent crime combined (Figure 2-8D)
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From page 86... ...
Figure 2-8D Robbery rate by city size. Worth noting is the fact that the aggravated assault rate was greater in cities of 250,000 to 500,000 than in cities of 500,000 to 1 million population.
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From page 87... ...
Not surprisingly, the lowest rate of aggravated assault -- 164 per 100,000 population in 1990 -- is reported for the rural counties. Figure 2-8E Aggravated assault rate by city size.
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From page 88... ...
Where one lives within even the highest crime rate cities affects one's risk of violent victimization more than the size of the city. Figure 2-9 is a map of census tracts in the city of San Diego, indicating the rate of violent crime in each tract during the second quarter of 1991.
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From page 89... ...
PATTERNS OF VIOLENCE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY 89 Figure 2-9 San Diego violent crime rate by census tract, 1991. Source: San Diego Police Department Crime Analysis Unit.
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From page 90... ...
The panel recommends that UCR, NCS, and NCHs explore and, to the extent possible, expand their capacities for collecting and reporting data for Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, and other ethnic categories. There is also a paucity of information on the consequences of victimization by violent crime.
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From page 91... ...
validation of hate violence counts obtained through the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program and analytical comparisons with the counts obtained from other sources, such as advocacy groups and community-based organizations. This chapter has pointed to various limitations of current information systems for measuring the national prevalence and incidence of violent crimes and their consequences, and for the victims of crimes.
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From page 92... ...
. NCS violent victimizations are only roughly comparable to UCR index crimes of violence, for reasons discussed earlier in this chapter.
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From page 93... ...
7The panel recognizes that the division between simple and aggravated assault involves considerable classification error and also that there are valid reasons for including simple assault as a violent crime, especially given its prevalence in domestic violence. 8UCR violent index crimes are offenses of murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1990: Table 1)
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. 18 Numerators are counts of violent crime arrests in Federal Bureau of Investigation (1992: Table 38)
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R 1989 Historical trends in violent crime: Europe and the United States.
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From page 96... ...
Koppel, Herbert 1987 Lifetime likelihood of victimization. Bureau of Justice Statistics Technical Report NCJ-104274.
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From page 97... ...
Hyattsville, Md.: Public Health Service. van Dijk, Jan J.M., Pat Mayhew, and Martin Killias 1990 Experiences of Crime Across the World: Key Findings from the 1989 International Crime Survey.
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