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Article 1:

Hipp, J. R. (2010). Assessing crime as a problem: the relationship between residents’ perception of crime and official crime rates over 25 years. Crime & Delinquency,(59)4 616-648

Abstract: This study compares the relationship between official crime rates in census tracts and resident perceptions of crime. Using a unique data set that links household-level data from the American Housing Survey metro samples over 25 years (1976-1999) with official crime rate data for census tracts in selected cities during selected years, this study finds that tract violent crime is the strongest predictor of residents’ perception of crime. This standardized coefficient was .71 on average over the seven waves. Models simultaneously taking into account both violent and property crime found a consistently strong positive effect for violent crime but a consistently negative effect for property crime. Among types of violent crime, robbery and aggravated assault have the strongest effect on the perception of crime in the tract. Burglary showed a stronger effect on perceptions of crime in the 1970s but a steadily weakening effect since then. There was little evidence that the racial/ethnic composition of the tract affected these perceptions.

Questions that apply to this article:

1. 1. Why was it important to look at rates rather than frequencies when comparing the cities in the samples?
2. 2. Did the researchers find that actually crime rates affected individual’s perceptions of crime?
3. 3. What issues come with studying crime rates at an aggregate level?

Article 2:
Brennan Iain R. 2016. When is violence not a crime? Factors associated with victims’ labelling of violence as a crime. International Review of Victimology (22)1 3-23.

Abstract: Many people do not regard violence against them as a crime, but the factors that influence this response are unknown. Understanding how the ‘crime worthiness’ of violence is interpreted allows an insight into how victims make sense of their experience, how communities influence attitudes towards victimisation and the reporting of crime to the police. A pooled cross-sectional sample of respondents to the Crime Survey for England and Wales was used to identify factors associated with the decision to label or discount a violent incident as a crime. Individual and neighbourhood level effects were estimated using multilevel modelling. Harm, the perceived unjustness of the incident and victim-offender relational distance predicted labelling, whereas frequency of victimisation and victim initiation of the incident predicted discounting. Neighbourhood and neighbourhood crime had little effect on victims’ interpretations of the ‘crimeworthiness’ of violence. When victims interpret violence against them, they appear to do so unencumbered by social norms, but are influenced by the impact of the violence, the ‘prototypicality’ of the incident as a crime and their previous experience of violence

Questions that apply to this article:

1. What was a dependent variable of interest in this study?
2. Which of the variables was made dichotomous, and why?
3. Pick three variables in the study and explain what each variable’s level of measurement was.