"The Validity of Official Crime Statistics: An Empirical Investigation," Social Science
Quarterly, 55 (June, 1974), 25-38.
Studies of crime, deviance, and social disorganization, and the impact of social conditions and police
decisions upon their scope, have been hampered by widespread suspicion of the validity of official measures
of crime. Crime statistics, the most notable and accessibly of which are those contained in the FBI's yearly
Uniform Crime Report, are reputedly invalid indicators even of the limited actions which they purport to
measure directly. Their validity is threatened in the sense that the reported figures are not one-to-one
reflections of events; the number of burglaries "known to the police" in official parlance do not equal the
number of burglaries which have taken place. This report suggests that the data may still be useful. While
error in official estimates of the incidence of crime may present serious problems for those interested in the
development of social indicators, it may not be devastating for other enterprises. Official crime statistics may
be quite useful as such, if we make modest demands of the data. This report compares official city crime
statistics in two categories (robbery and auto theft) with survey-generated measures of the incidence of
victimization in the same communities. The comparison suggests that official figures may be useful
indicators of the relative distribution of crime across cities.
Quarterly, 55 (June, 1974), 25-38.
Studies of crime, deviance, and social disorganization, and the impact of social conditions and police
decisions upon their scope, have been hampered by widespread suspicion of the validity of official measures
of crime. Crime statistics, the most notable and accessibly of which are those contained in the FBI's yearly
Uniform Crime Report, are reputedly invalid indicators even of the limited actions which they purport to
measure directly. Their validity is threatened in the sense that the reported figures are not one-to-one
reflections of events; the number of burglaries "known to the police" in official parlance do not equal the
number of burglaries which have taken place. This report suggests that the data may still be useful. While
error in official estimates of the incidence of crime may present serious problems for those interested in the
development of social indicators, it may not be devastating for other enterprises. Official crime statistics may
be quite useful as such, if we make modest demands of the data. This report compares official city crime
statistics in two categories (robbery and auto theft) with survey-generated measures of the incidence of
victimization in the same communities. The comparison suggests that official figures may be useful
indicators of the relative distribution of crime across cities.
“Comparing Measures of Crime: Police Statistics and Survey Estimates of Citizen
Victimization in American Cities. Proceedings of the American Statistical Association,
1974 Social Statistics Section.
This paper examines in detail the processes by which crimes are reported in survey interviews and to the
police. It compares the error structures of the resulting data.
Victimization in American Cities. Proceedings of the American Statistical Association,
1974 Social Statistics Section.
This paper examines in detail the processes by which crimes are reported in survey interviews and to the
police. It compares the error structures of the resulting data.
"Crime and Crime Rates," in Wesley G. Skogan (ed.) Sample Surveys of the Victims of
Crime. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co., 1976, Chapter 6, 105-120.
Victimization surveys were conceived to provide new and more accurate measures of the incidence of crime.
Direct interviews with victims enabled us to bypass the fallible data-gathering activities of local police
departments and gather wide-ranging and detailed information on the experiences of citizens both with crime
and with the criminal justice system. One of the first uses of the victimization survey data collected for the
federal government by the Bureau of the Census was to compare them with the official crime statistics
published yearly by the FBI. This was an obvious first step, for the discrepancy between crime estimates
made through surveys and crime reports filed with the FBI was quite large. The Census Bureau's National
Crime Survey uncovered about three times as many crimes as had been recorded by the police. The media
focused on the differences between official and survey crime figures for specific cities. The New York Times,
for example, printed the two side by side for eight large cities. In a front page article, David Burnham argued
that the publication of such statistics would increase pressure on local criminal justice agencies to improve
their performance and end FBI and local police department domination of crime statistics. This chapter
examines the relationship 1) between official and survey measures in crime and 2) between each type of
measure and the "true" crime rate. The chapter also examines the consequences of these observations for
criminal justice planning, management and evaluation.
Crime. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co., 1976, Chapter 6, 105-120.
Victimization surveys were conceived to provide new and more accurate measures of the incidence of crime.
Direct interviews with victims enabled us to bypass the fallible data-gathering activities of local police
departments and gather wide-ranging and detailed information on the experiences of citizens both with crime
and with the criminal justice system. One of the first uses of the victimization survey data collected for the
federal government by the Bureau of the Census was to compare them with the official crime statistics
published yearly by the FBI. This was an obvious first step, for the discrepancy between crime estimates
made through surveys and crime reports filed with the FBI was quite large. The Census Bureau's National
Crime Survey uncovered about three times as many crimes as had been recorded by the police. The media
focused on the differences between official and survey crime figures for specific cities. The New York Times,
for example, printed the two side by side for eight large cities. In a front page article, David Burnham argued
that the publication of such statistics would increase pressure on local criminal justice agencies to improve
their performance and end FBI and local police department domination of crime statistics. This chapter
examines the relationship 1) between official and survey measures in crime and 2) between each type of
measure and the "true" crime rate. The chapter also examines the consequences of these observations for
criminal justice planning, management and evaluation.
Measurement Abstracts
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