Politicians love to thump on the campaign trail about the crime rate. You’ve no doubt heard experts discuss the crime rate on TV. Everyone loves to talk about crime and violence in America – doing something about it, however, is a different matter. How can we talk about crime if we can’t even agree what it is and how to measure it?
Crime Rate
When talking about the “crime rate,” keep in mind this number is expressed as a ratio of crimes in an area to the population of an area in a given year (i.e. per 1000 members of a population).
There are two commonly cited measures of the nation’s crime rate. One is an annual report by the FBI of serious crimes reported to police in approximately 18,000 jurisdictions around the country. The other is an annual survey of more than 90,000 households conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), which asks Americans ages 12 and older whether they were the victims of crime in the past six months (regardless of whether they reported those crimes to the police or not). Both the FBI and BJS data show a substantial decline in the violent crime rate since its peak in the early 1990s.
Using the FBI numbers, the rate fell almost 50% between 1993 and 2015, the most recent full year available. Using the BJS data, the rate fell by 77% during that span (for both studies, 2016 is the most recent full year of data). It’s important to note, however, that the FBI reported a 3% increase in the violent crime rate between 2014 and 2015, including a 10% increase in the murder rate. (The BJS figures show a stable violent crime rate between 2014 and 2015, but they do not count murders) (Pew report).
Experts are predicting that 2016 FBI data will show another increase in the violent crime rate – including another rise in the murder rate – when they are released later this year (Pew report).
Why is the Crime Rate Falling?
A report from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, called What Caused the Crime Decline? finds that the simple answer – increasing incarceration – is not the answer. As Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz writes in the foreword, “This prodigious rate of incarceration is not only inhumane, it is economic folly.”
So what’s the reason? Well, it’s complicated. And many experts disagree with one another. One team of economic and criminal justice researchers spent 20 months testing fourteen popular theories for the crime decline. They delved into over 30 years of data collected from all 50 states and the 50 largest cities. The results are sharply etched and in the words of the researchers “We do not know with precision what caused the crime decline, but the growth in incarceration played only a minor role, and now has a negligible impact.”
Variations in Crime Rates
There are large variations in crime rates. The FBI’s data allow for geographic comparisons of crime rates and these comparisons can show big differences from state to state and city to city. In 2015, for instance, there were more than 600 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in Alaska, Nevada, New Mexico and Tennessee. By contrast, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Virginia had rates below 200 violent crimes per 100,000 residents.
Chicago has drawn widespread attention for its soaring murder total in recent years, its murder rate in 2015 – 18 murders and non-negligent manslaughters per 100,000 residents – was less than a third of the rate in St. Louis (59 per 100,000) and Baltimore (55 per 100,000). Here again, as the FBI notes, there are different social factors might influence a particular area’s crime rate, including its population density, age of the population, and economic conditions (Pew Report).
Public Perceptions of Crime Don’t Tend to Align with Data
Opinion surveys regularly find that Americans believe crime is up nationally, even when the data show it is down. In 17 Gallup surveys conducted since 1993, at least six-in-ten Americans said there was more crime in the U.S.compared with the year before, despite the generally downward trend in national violent and property crime rates during much of that period. Pew Research Center surveys have documented this pattern.
Another Pew survey in late 2016 found that 57% of registered voters said crime had gotten worse since 2008, even though BJS and FBI data show that violent and property crime rates declined by double-digit percentages during that time span (Pew Report).
Oddly enough, while perceptions of rising crime at the national level are common, fewer Americans tend to say crime is up when asked about the local level. In 20 Gallup surveys conducted since 1996, about half of Americans or fewer said crime is up in their area compared with the year before (Pew Report).
The failure of public perceptions to line up with data is that too often Americans support increasingly harsh and longer sentencing (unfair and very expensive), which means there is less money available for things like education and research. Consequently, Americans end up with criminal justice policies that are unable to effectively address social problems, which in turn feeds into increased crime and more cost over the long run.
Sources of Crime Statistics
Crime and what we know about it is in many ways – to borrow a term from sociology – socially constructed. As a philosophical orientation, social constructionism holds that the meaning of acts, behaviors, and events is not an objective quality of those phenomena but is assigned to them by human beings in social interaction. In other words, the meaning we attribute to crime is socially defined and therefore is subject to social change (Berger and Luckmann, 1967). These meanings have a major impact on what we decide to “count” as criminal.
Behaviors become crimes through a process of social construction. The same behavior may be considered criminal in one society and an act of honor in another society or in the same society at a different time. The legal status of a behavior—whether it is defined as a crime—lies not in the content of the behavior itself but in the social response to the behavior or to the persons who engage in it. Changes in the legal status of a behavior are often brought about by social movements and may entail considerable social conflict. Examples include the recent controversies over abortion policy and assisted suicide in the United States. Finally, the social response to crime—including many social-science explanations of criminal behavior—are based not only on the qualities of the act but also on the social and moral standing of the offender and the victim.
Without data, however, crime would in many ways not exist because we wouldn’t have a way to talk about it; there would be no substance. Some of the most important sources for crime reporting that we will refer to often are among the essential elements in helping to construct crime. They are:
- Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) – Part I and Part II Offenses
- Supplementary Homicide Reports
- The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
- National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)
The Dark Figure of Crime – Many Crimes are not Reported
The dark figure of crime refers to a term utilized by criminologists and others. The term “dark figure of crime” was first used by the Belgian mathematician and sociologist Adolphe Quetelet in 1832. These are crimes that are known to exist due to the reporting of observers and/or victims, but they tend not to be reported or recorded by law enforcement agencies; they include criminal incidents/occurrences that meet the definition of a recordable crime, but they effectively elude capture by sources of official statistics.
In its annual survey, BJS asks victims of crime whether or not they reported that crime to police. In 2015, the most recent year available, only about half of the violent crime tracked by BJS (47%) was reported to police. And in the much more common category of property crime, only about a third (35%) was reported. The proportion was substantially higher for offenses classified as serious violent crime (55%), a category that includes serious domestic violence (61% of which was reported), serious violent crime involving injury (59%) and serious violent crime involving weapons (56%). There are a variety of reasons why crime might not be reported, including a feeling that police “would not or could not do anything to help” or that the crime is “a personal issue or too trivial to report,” according to BJS (Pew Report).
Why is the Dark Figure of Crime so Important?
Crimes go unreported for various reasons, whether it’s from fear of reporting the crimes or from a fear of the police. The important takeaway here is that the failure to report these crimes calls into question the accuracy of official sources of crime statistics.
Sources
“5 Facts About Crime in the U.S.,” Pew Report
“The Many Causes of America’s Decline in Crime,” The Atlantic
Discussion Questions
How is crime “socially constructed?”
What are some of the potential reasons that explain the falling rate of crime in the U.S.?
What is the “dark figure of crime” and why is it important?
Why do you think the public tends to believe crime is becoming more prevalent, even though statistics show (with some exceptions) that it is falling almost everywhere in the U.S.?
What did you learn about the crime rate when you looked at your local area?
The idea that crime is socially constructed comes from how many societies define certain acts as crimes and socially acceptable. For example, look at modern America and 18th-19th century America, specifically at the act of dueling. Back in that day and society, it was permissible to shoot a fellow man over a disagreement as long as you did it in a strange type of game. On the contrary, if I did that today, I would immediately be locked up and charged with second-degree murder. This shows how, as societies and their norms change, they classify what is a crime and what isn’t. When it comes to the reason for the drop in crime rate, we don’t know; as said for a while, it was believed that it had to do with rising incarcerations; however, later studies disproved that; if rising incarcerations did impact the crime rate, its impact was minor. However, other theories could answer the question, such as a rise in education, seeing as areas with a higher level of education also have a lower crime rate, and the correlation with the overall average education level rising in America could be the reason why the crime rate is steadily dropping. The “dark figure of crime” refers to how many crimes go unreported. This is important because it leads to our statistics being less reliable. Despite stats showing the crime rate is decreasing, the general public thinks it’s rising. This disconnect could be caused by how the media reports on crime and even misinformation from the media. For example, most forms of media only talk about the actual crimes being committed but not their solving; most people are just going to think that more and more crimes are being committed.
I see that numerous regions are witnessing an ongoing drop in crime rates, and several critical factors are behind this significant development. For instance, among these is the movement toward far more effective policing methods. Many communities have embraced the community policing model where officers make attempts to know more about the neighborhoods they serve. Community policing is much more than a simple public relations effort. Officers work to get the public more involved in keeping the community safe. And as part of that they make a strong effort to get the public to report suspicious activities. And the public actually does get more involved. But there’s virtually no discussion of the fact. Even though many communities now enjoy stronger police-citizen partnerships, crime victims still fail to report crimes.
Numerous locations seem to be showing a steady drop in crime rates, which can be traced back to various reasons of important causes. With the adoption of more successful and efficient policing techniques, such as community policing, which emphasizes the development of ties between law enforcement and its community members, is an example of a major factor. By doing this, we can encourage people in the community to report any suspicious activities they may come across, which helps to promote a safer atmosphere. Many victims still decide not to disclose crimes and events, even in spite of the general decline in crime. Their silence may be due to a variety of factors, as they may feel emotions of shame or humiliation, fear of the criminal taking revenge, the belief that the crime never occurred and they are fabricating it, or concern that they won’t be believed.
Crime and everything we know about it is socially constructed. Crime is socially constructed based on social interaction. This would include physical actions, behaviors, and tendencies in relation to the quality of human interactions. According to the article, “increasing incarceration-is not the answer.” With increasing incarceration evidently not being a factor for the falling rate of crime, the article proceeds to essentially say that they do not know what caused the crime to decline. However they do say that the growth in incarceration played an insignificant role. The dark figure of crime is crime that tends not to be reported. This would include any criminal activity that is never included in criminal statistics. For example, statistics are always going to be skewed because the police can only record their numbers that are in their system. The dark figure of crime inevitably plays a role because the police are unaware of these crimes.
There are clear factors that affect the public’s view on crime. With social media and popular news outlets, everyone in the US can become aware of mainstream crimes and illegal activity. I think that our modern technology is a major driving factor. The public is always going to see major crime issues on social media and the news because they are always being streamed nowadays. Even though with statistics the crime rate is falling, if all people see on social media is crime, drug busts, illegal activity, etc., they are more inclined to believe that crime in the United States is becoming a more prevalent issue. Looking at the crime rate in my local area, in this area burglary, assault, murder, and rape are higher than the national average. Theft and motor vehicle theft were the only ones below the national average, but not by much.
Crime is socially constructed because everyone as a society perceives what is considered a crime differently. One of the more common crimes people view differently is the use of drugs or marijuana.There are people that think smoking marijuana is going to make you less smart or do something extremely terrible to you, meanwhile there are people who use it to help them medically with stress,anxiety,etc. While people think that because marijuana usage is going up crime rates are also going up, but in reality they aren’t. Law enforcement techniques are improving as well as the technology that they using. With this improved technology and techniques, crime rates are actually going down. The dark figure of crime also known as the crimes that don’t get reported or discovered is important because finding out where these crimes are can help to support and improve the society or area these unreported crimes are. Social media has an effect on what people perceive, and because of this people think crimes are more worse than what they actually are. While looking at the crime rates around my local area I found that I also fell victim to believing that crime rates near me are high, but in reality they aren’t actually high at all. We fall victim to believing whatever is trending at the time on social media because we want to fit in, this is why crime is socially constructed.
The article displays crime as a social construct. What we consider a crime in today’s society may not have been considered criminal in a different point in history. Crime is more so based on what’s socially acceptable and not what’s actually considered a crime in the eyes of the law. For example, it was socially acceptable to commit hate crimes against other races, especially African Americans. Today, you would get the worst punishment for a crime like that. One hundred years ago, you would probably get a high-five from everybody around you. This is an example of how crime is socially constructed. We determine what a crime is based on how society responds to it.
I think the crime rates are falling because of an increase in jobs. For example, the majority of crimes are committed by people who don’t have jobs or at least good paying jobs. There are many more opportunities to get a good paying job. They won’t need to commit crimes if they have equal opportunities to get jobs. Another possible reason for the decreased crime rate could be the increase in rehabilitative programs and supportive services available to people coming out of jails and prisons.
The “dark figure of crime” is the number of times crimes occur but aren’t reported by witnesses or victims. People fail to report crimes that they don’t think law enforcement will do anything about or out of fear of retaliation. This is also a reason why the crime rates have dropped.
I think that people perceive crime to be increasing -despite statistics indicating otherwise- because media tends to focus on crime much more than any other topic. Negative news stories get better ratings and are broadcast more often; therefore, it gives the perception that crime is increasing.
In Wilkins Township, from 2020 to 2022, the crime rate dropped 87%.
Crime is socially constructed as whether or not you committed a crime, the severity of it, and if you’re truly a criminal or not. The statistics for crimes are labeled as those that are reported, and those that are not reported. These are known as an annual report by the FBI, and an annual survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, BJS.The difference between the two is that the FBI asks for serious crimes reported through out the country, while BJS asks whether or not someone has been a victim of a crime in the last six months, no matter if it was reported or not. There is no clear reason as to why crime rate is falling, however there are a few theories. Incarceration increase, where you live, fear of reporting a crime and just not reporting a crime in general. Incarceration only played a small role in the crime rate drop, it is even seen as inhumane. Where you live plays a huge part in how much crime you’re gonna experience. For example someone who lives in a nice neighborhood, they won’t experience crime like someone who’s poorer and lives in a ghetto area. People also don’t report crimes either out of fear, or they simply think it’s a trivial matter and does not matter as much as other reported crimes. Lots of crime is done without anyone knowing, it goes undetected by even cops and other people. This is the dark figure of crime, where so many crimes go unreported and making them unknown. The dark figure of crime is important because these unreported crimes questions the accuracy of all these surveys.
Crimes are viewed differently by people, cultures, neighborhoods, and socioeconomic status of people. What one group feels is a crime, another may think it was normal behavior. This could be a reason of why some crime does not get reported all the time. For example, a person in a poor economic area may not think that graffiti is considered a crime. It seems normal to walk down the street and see it in those areas. However, if someone were to spray paint a wall of a playground or garage of a home with graffiti in an affluent suburb, it would be considered a crime and probably reported. Perception of social and economic make-up contributes to what is a crime and what ends up reported as a crime. Acts of crime can be found on TV and social media daily and crime statistics are calculated from a variety of sources as this article shared. Even though a crime is not reported to authorities for the reason mentioned above or other reasons such as a witness not wanting to get involved, it doesn’t mean the crime rate is necessarily declining. The dark figure of crime refers to crime that isn’t reported to authorities for many reasons, but instead, people are reporting through social media. Crime statistics should be researched through multiple ways, such as surveys, social media and research because it cannot be measured solely on reported crimes since many go unreported.
Crime being socially constructed means that what is considered a crime can vary depending on the society, culture, and time. It is not just about the act itself but how society perceives and reacts to it. Some of the potential reasons that explains the falling rate of crime in the U.S is that there is not a precise reason what caused the crime decline. The dark figure of crime is referring to a term used by criminologists and others. The dark figure are crimes that are known to exist due to the reporting of observers and/or victims, but they tend not to be reported or recorded by law enforcement agencies. Crimes go unreported for assorted reasons this is why the dark figure of crime is important. People tend to believe crime is becoming more prevalent because of the behavior behind the crimes. I learned that the crime rate in my area is a lot higher than I thought. Which is interesting when you really think about it.
After reading the article, I’ve learned more about crime rates. When we say that crime is “socially constructed, what we define as criminal is not only the act itself, but it becomes defined by the way society decides to define the act in question. This basically means that some behaviors considered criminal across one culture or time are perfectly acceptable across another. So what is normally referred to as a crime depends on the accepted social norms, laws, and values of the community concerned.
The “dark figure of crime” can be used to relate to the crimes that take place but are never reported or recorded by policing agencies. With that being said, it is important to keep in mind the fact that if most of the crimes are not reported, we will never have a precise picture of the amount of actual crime. The gap can affect the way we interpret and make decisions based on crime trends. Knowledge of this dark figure of crime gives more awareness that crime statistics are not always what they seem to be and that something more significant is happening beneath it all.
People believe crime is increasing, even though the crime rates have decreased. I believe this happens because the media likes to broadcast more incidents related to crime; these may give the impression that the crime is more widespread than in fact it is. Also, I believe our personal experiences can make us feel like crime is increasing. And let’s not forget what happens when social media gets ahold of any news.
Crime is socially constructed through groups or throughout our whole life people talk about crime everyday, the location, age, who you surround yourself with, local news, and the media takes a big part. Such as living in Pittsburgh where this is a lot of crime throughout the year. Also, a lot of “gangs” and a most of the time it is murder cases, People that live in Pittsburgh grew up around things happening often such as where I grew up in McKeesport, McKeesport is number 4 out of most dangerous cities listed in America and with a crime rating of 47 per one thousand residents. It is not really shocking how much crime really happens but a lot of it is hidden and I honestly feel like it is to not make people panic and fear their lives everyday which points at the “dark figure crime” and why it is important for crimes that go unreported.
The article dives into the definition of crime and how it is a behavior based problem. I partially agree with this statement as I believe that there are other factors that play into making someone a criminal such as their environment and their treatment as a child. The article also discusses the dropping crime rate contradicting the widespread belief of most Americans and the “dark figure of crime”. The reason that the nation wide beliefs do not match the statistics is due to how many and how often the crimes categorized in the “dark figure” occur. This all started from the main issue of a wide margin of the public not having trust in the police to protect them, or possibly being detained for their own offenses while trying to receive help. While it is not possible to allow criminal offenses to pass while the perpetrator is reporting a crime, there should be an increased focus on public relations to ensure that citizens can feel protected.
Examining crime rates reveals that crime is deeply socially constructed, and shaped by cultural norms, power dynamics, and societal responses. Definitions of crime can differ widely across various societies and historical contexts, influenced by those in authority and prevailing social values. Despite the widespread belief that crime is on the rise, both FBI and BJS data indicate a substantial decline in crime rates in the U.S. since the early 1990s. This decline cannot be attributed to increased incarceration, other factors such as economic conditions, changes in policing strategies, demographic shifts, and criminal justice reforms also plays an important roles. The concept of the “dark figure of crime,” which refers to unreported or unrecorded crimes, highlights the limitations of official statistics and underscores the need for improved crime reporting and victim support systems. Public perception often lags behind actual data due to media sensationalism, cognitive biases, political rhetoric, and general fear, leading to the belief that crime is more prevalent than it truly is. This discrepancy was particularly striking to me, especially when I learned that Chicago’s 2015 murder rate was significantly lower than that of St. Louis and Baltimore, despite Chicago’s reputation as one of the most dangerous cities. Additionally, the quote “without data, crime would not exist” made me to think about the essential role of crime data in shaping our understanding of safety.Imagining a society without crime statistics, where people relied simply on personal judgment to determine safety, illustrates how crucial data is for forming accurate perceptions and developing effective crime prevention strategies.I was not expecting the crime rate in Pittsburgh to be so high. According to my research, Pittsburgh is supposed to be one of the safest cities in the USA. However, when you compare it to other cities in Pennsylvania, the crime rate is very high, almost equal to Philadelphia.
I was very surprised to learn that the crime rate has been declining since the 90’s. I think one of the reasons people like myself may be mistaken and believe the crime rate is going up and is higher than it actually is, is because of the media. I don’t know if I have ever been able to go a few days without hearing about something tragic that has taken place. Whether it be the news on tv or the social media apps on your phone you are bound to see some sort of crime each time you watch. As soon as something bad happens it is blasted on the internet. Contrary to how much crime people are exposed to, when they observe it in real time they do not often report it. Since we have learned that the crime rate actually is declining, this falling rate in the U.S. may be caused by the lack of people reporting. If crimes are not reported to law enforcement it is impossible for them to be added to the statistics. There is a term criminologists use called the “dark figure of crime”, these are the crimes that exist due to the reporting of observers and/or people but tend to not be reported or recorded by law enforcement. The crimes that don’t get reported are considered these dark figures! Unfortunately since there is a lot of crime that doesn’t get reported I don’t think we will ever know the accurate amount of crime that takes place.This article has given me good insight on how the crime rate gets measured and I am honestly very interested in researching the varying crime rates around Pittsburgh.
I believe crime is socially constructed by societal standards, what people perceive to be bad or illegal even if it’s something not that bad. I think everyone has their own vision of right and wrong and somethings appear more normal/correct to others. For example, some people believe shop lifting and little thefts are no big deal, whereas, as someone who works in retail, it is taken very seriously by workers and businesses. Crime is always up for debate because things are not always just right or wrong, public and community opinions weigh heavily on the idea of crime, and personal prejudices and biases play a factor as well. Some reasons for the falling crime rate in the U.S. could be possibly because incarcerations, deaths, deportations, border patrol, fear, any number of things could contribute. Secondly, dark figure crime is a term that refers to the idea that crimes are reported by bystanders or victims but are not assessed by law enforcement. This leads to a bigger problem of serious crimes not being reported which affects crime statistics. Dark figure crime could be caused by many factors such as fear, biases, issues within law enforcement, or issues within the observers or victims. Although the public tends to believe crime is becoming more prevalent, the statistics suggest the opposite. This is because of public perception, and most American support longer incarcerations thus taking money away from education. I can conclude that Americans must believe there is more crime than shown in statistics is because not all crimes are reported, and that many crimes are seen on the news, but the outcome of the crimes are not shown. After looking at my local area crime rate, I am a bit astonished. Although my house address is considered McKeesport, I live in a generally safe area more towards Elizabeth. McKeesport is ranked number four in the top ten most dangerous cities in the United States, according to WTAE, and has a total crime rate of 47.19 according to Neighborhood Scout. I learned that crimes in McKeesport per square mile are way above the national median, therefore concluding that the crime is much worse than I realized. I’m thankful to live in a safer area compared to McKeesport, but living so close I should have realized sooner how bad the crime is, as that I live very close to this area.
I found it mind blowing just how influential the public and reporting is on criminal justice. When the article made a connection to how lack of reporting leads to inaccurate stats on the country’s crime rate, which then results in unsuccessful methods of dealing with crime, it was astonishing, but simultaneously felt obvious. I feel the dark figure of crime has a major effect on crime being socially constructed, as well on people’s assumptions about crime (specifically the assumption that the crime rate is much higher than what studies show). The high percentage of unreported crime (pretty much half of all crimes committed) creates an overwhelming, widespread feeling of paranoia, which therefore leads people to prepare for and assume the worst. This pessimism, combined with people’s lack of willingness to do their own research, then comes out in the study results. Many of the aspects that lead to unreported crime (such as lack of trust in law enforcement, lack of faith in the justice system, etc), that same pessimism, influences social constructs on crime. A happy society that trusts their country’s justice system and feels safe in their community is way less likely to be suspicious of loitering teenagers than a paranoid, fearful community. That happy society might be more open to drug use (if the drugs are found to be beneficial) than the paranoid one.
Crime is socially constructed by the behavior of how people learn about the crime or what their reaction is like when they hear about it, or even the status of the crime and the morbidity of it. For example, many people in the US (conservatives) right now are hating the idea of abortion being legal because they believe that it is murder of an unborn baby, but they also want to protect gun privileges as well even though many young kids are getting killed by school shootings annually.
Some of the potential reasons could be that fact that there have been lots of situations that have happened to the US that just makes it harder to do much crimes, like for instance in the rise of COVID, lots of cases of people having COVID, places being closed down, we were forced into staying inside of out homes as a way to avoid catching it. As said in the website, perceptions are off as well, some people are stating that crime went down but some of them are saying it got even worse, so the data doesn’t even add up.
They are crimes that are reported by the victims but not put into the system evidently by law enforcement. It is very important considering that so many horrible things happen to victims but if they look at their chances of their case even being looked at by a employee of the law (police, lawyer, judge, etc), and the consideration of the background, they sometimes hesitate then since they think that their case won’t be heard of and won’t matter to them within the circumstances.
It is honestly the media that adds in the paranoia and scary intuition for people into believing crime is still rising to this day, especially in documentaries or shows/movies about criminals, and many people get influenced by that easily. The news as well, they have something new everyday to report, which makes it more unsafe for people to want to leave their own homes, especially children.
In the area I live in, there isn’t much crime that has been reported here other than mini robberies in our local mall or speeding, but other than that, not much has been stated.
According to the website crime could be defined as a socially constructed phenomena. Meaning that a behavior is considered a crime only when society deems such behavior a crime. Perception of crime varies according to society and times. For example, back in the colony days society considered “witchcraft” the most heinous crime possible. Civilians, many of them innocent, were hung, burned and pretty much executed for committing such acts. Times have changed and nowadays the first amendment would protect people who practice “witchcraft” because Americans have the freedom to exercise their religion without prohibition.
Crime is a delicate subject and as shown on the website it is difficult to measure its rate. Although there are data sources that attempt to measure crime, such as the UCR, NIBRS, NCVS and others that report falling crime rates the general population perceives crime rates going up. Essentially because not all crimes are reported and many fall in the category of “The Dark Figure of Crime”. This phenomenon could be due to the fact that there are different perceptions of crime because the US is so diverse. People may fall to report a crime because a certain behavior may not be considered a crime worth reporting in different cultures. The more diverse a society becomes the scope on which everyone could agree a behavior is a crime becomes smaller. Nevertheless crime takes place in society and currently most of the country’s resources are being spent trying to figure out a way to combat crime.
Crime is socially constructed because it all depends how the public reacts to a certain act. Everyone has different views about all sorts of crimes. One of the more popular controversial topics are abortions. Certain people may think abortions are inhumane and should be illegal while others believe my body, my choice. Recently, there have been laws passed in many states banning abortions, forcing desperate women to go to a different state. Groups of people stand outside clinics with signs saying “pro-life” and harass women going into the buildings. Other groups have protested with signs saying “my body my choice” and support the women. This goes along with the fact that different groups of people react completely differently to the same topic, which makes crime a social construct. Another topic I would like to talk about is why the public believes crime rates are going up, while statistics show they are actually decreasing. I think a big factor of why the public thinks crime is increasing is the media. The media picks and chooses what they feed the public. None of the news channels show someone helping the homeless, or volunteering at a shelter, they show shootings, burglaries, robberies, etc. People who watch the news every night compared to people who never watch the news will have different views on crime rates due to the fact that one person sees all of the crime happening while the other only sees what’s going on around them. Headlines like “shooting at local walmart” will get way more attention than “woman donates money to a domestic abuse shelter”. The media plays a huge part in why the public believes what they believe, and also why the public does not hear about certain things that the media wants to keep hidden.
The highest crime rate in my local area would have to be Camden, New Jersey. It is knowingly known as the 3rd most dangerous city in the United States. It is also ranked behind Detriot and St. Louis in highest crime rate and it is also in fact the most dangerous city in New Jersey although I would think Newark would have the highest crime rate in New Jersey because it’s so close to the city and New York City has a percentage in crime rate of 35% and in fact Newark is placed 6th in New Jerseys highest crime rate. As of right now, the crime rate in New Jersey is below average than its normal rate. The potential reason that New Jersey’s crime rate is falling it dropped 66% percent from 2014 to 2020. Half of the other states have a higher crime than New Jersey the majority of crimes are burglary and auto theft. Although New Jersey’s crime rate is decreasing than normal, I still think it is a safe state to live in although some counties have a higher rate than others. Take a look at Morris County the percentage crime rate is 12% It is the lowest county crime rate in NJ on the other hand we have Camden County with a percentage of 35%. I would say Camden has a high crime rate because it is so close to Philadelphia that it has the same crime rate as Camden Thousands of people were left jobless in Camden.
There are a few aspects of this article that I found very interesting. Most generally, I was completely unaware that the crime rate was falling. This is fascinating to me because as it said, I am so used to hearing politicians constantly talking about how crime rates are awfully high and that we need to take action to lower them. One thing I am curious about is what the crime rates looked like in more recent times, especially during the quarantine period of COVID-19; I will be researching this further to see if they follow the data trends. The numbers that stood out to me most in this article were from the “Variations in Crime Rates” section. It stated that Chicago’s murder rate in 2015 was less than a third of that of St. Louis and Baltimore, which is very contradicting to how Chicago is socially viewed. I have often heard people describing it to be “one of the most dangerous cities in America”, so it’s surprising to find out that this is not based on the murder/manslaughter rates alone. I also really liked the quote “without data, crime would not exist”, which is something I never really thought of before. I wonder what a society without any crime data would look like. It is likely that people would make their own judgement and live based on their idea of what areas are safe and dangerous, however, it is interesting to imagine a society in which no one cared about crime rates at all.
After reading this article I learned that variations in crime rates are way more complicated than i anticipated. A potential reason I believe explains the falling rate of crime in the US, is the lack of reports. For example, opinion surveys such as “Gallup” and “Pew” surveys state that when Americans were asked if they believe crime rates are decreasing, they gave the opposite answer. Citizens instead believe that crime is actually increasing wherever they are. This section of the article was most interesting because I can agree. It seems as though crime is all we see, especially with increasing technology advances. The dark figure of crime refers to a term utilized by criminologists. The term “dark figure of crime” was first used by the Belgian mathematician and sociologist. In psychology there is something called the bystander effect; where people feel the need to help but choose not to anyway. For example, someone trips and looks as though they need help up and no one decides to help them until they see someone else come try to help them up. This usually results in someone getting away with a crime therefore never being reported. Usually people will witness crimes and see someone in danger and decide not to report or try to help the victim. I also feel that social media and the news play a part in Americans believing crime is only going up. We see and believe what social media puts out there for us to see. A lot of the times the store gets twisted making us only see what’s not being fixed and all the bad and not what the solution is to the problems which is another reason why Americans believe that are crimes rates are steady rising and nothing else is changing. I believe if we can start showcasing the problems with also the solutions not leaving anything unfinished or unsaid we could change the image of crime rates.
Crime is heavily influenced by one’s social conditions and environment. Anything from location, age, economic standing,- even what’s being portrayed in the media- can have a significant impact on both crime and the associated crime rates.
Oftentimes, more densely populated areas, especially those that have fewer financial resources, are a far more popular breeding ground for various types of offenses. However, that’s not to say that more economically privileged counties are void of crime altogether. In both areas, social perception and societal norms impact what people view as “violations” vs. normal happenings. One instance of this is the discrepancies between sentencing and arresting for crack-cocaine vs., its far more potent and expensive counterpart, powder cocaine. According to the National Library of Medicine crack-cocaine presents an 18:1 ratio for receiving lifetime sentences, or multiple arrests, when compared to that of powder cocaine users. I believe this is due to the social standings and economic gap between the users. Typically people using powder cocaine are wealthier than that of its counterpart. This is seen heavily in areas such as Wall Street in NYC. Some of the most powerful people can get away with far more offenses due their socioeconomic power. The people in these circles don’t view what they’re doing as illegal, but merely something fun or a habit on the side. If an action is not perceived as wrongdoing, then it is less likely to be reported, which falls into the “dark figure of crime”.
Crime can be perceived and spread a bunch of different ways. It can be spread through social media, Television Networking, News, and mouth to mouth. Some people may live through it on a day to day basis and some people might not live through it at all or very little and can only judge by what they hear or see. The crime rate in the U.S has surprisingly been at a decline. I believe there are a lot of reasons for this. One reason I believe is the increasing rate of incarceration, I believe the way it is easy to go to jail over little things and the harsh acts on little things plays a roll into it, I also believe in some areas more job opportunities are causing a decline in crime rate because i believe a lot of crime comes from unemployed people more so because they have nothing better to do or nothing to do at all. The dark figure I feel like is crime that the community keeps from the police whether it’s knowingly or not on purpose just to the simple fact of not getting involved with the police in any way. Looking at my local area I have learned that a lot of male crime in the tri state is from gun violence or suicide. That is something I did not know but makes a lot of sense.
The fact that the falling crime rate is shocking for so many people. Why do people think that crimes are increasing in the US day by day, well it’s all about the development of social media and technology. 30 years ago, when a crime happened there were only a few people who knew about it, but right now in the 21st century if a crime happens wherever it took place it’s going to blow on social media and the whole world will be talking about it. People will be more scared and realize that crimes are becoming more prevalent, even though the statistics show the opposite. There are so many reasons for the falling rate of crime and the most important is people now are more educated, and more afraid of the law that is working 24/7 to keep people safe. Life is more worth it than being in jail because you killed someone for a simple reason as they used to do back 100 years ago.
I was genuinely surprised to see that the crime rate is on the decline, especially in an age where it seems like we see so many crime stories on social media. It’s like when you pay attention to something, it seems like it’s happening more often. This downward trend could be attributed to technological advances, which might make people think twice before committing crimes. But I acknowledge if someone really wants to do it, they’ll find a way.
In my perspective, the concept of the “dark figure” of crime holds particular relevance in impoverished areas. Many crimes, such as domestic abuse, trafficking, and even murder, can unfold slowly and discreetly in these places. People tend to be more smart in these areas and pick vulnerable victims. Our personal experiences significantly shape our perception of reported crimes, and I do not think we will ever obtain a truly accurate measure of the extent of criminal activity and what qualifies as a crime. Countless crimes may continue to remain hidden, concealed from the public eye, and will never be truly discovered.
Crime is “socially constructed” in the sense that the definition and perception of what constitutes a crime changes based on societal norms. Societal beliefs and power structures influence which behaviors are labeled as criminal and which are not. Actions that were once considered criminal can become accepted, and vice versa. For example, during Prohibition in the U.S., the sale and consumption of alcohol were criminalized, whereas now it is legal for adults. For centuries, The Atlantic slave trade was not only accepted but also protected by legal frameworks, but as societal attitudes evolved, such laws have changed and been revoked. Howard Becker, a sociologist, pointed out that deviance is not inherent in an act but is based on how society perceives that act. In his words, “deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an offender.”
After reading about crime rates I have a much better understanding overall. I didn’t know that there is two different ways that crime rate is measured. Crime is socially constructed because in the court systems are focused on public views on what happened and if the information provided to juries is correct and not misleading to get a desired outcome. One example is that someone could get charged for a crime and be found guilty, even if they are innocent. The fact is that the idea of crime changes from person to person. It’s hard to describe a singular reason on why crime rates are falling, but one key factor I believe really helps with dropping crime rates is education. Many times young people will start to get involved in crime because of other issues that they do not understand how to solve. Having resources and support can heavily change the outcome of someone who’s at risk for committing crimes. I 100% think that the public thinks crime is becoming more and more common in the United States because of how the media sensationalizes crime and will produce thousands of stories and articles about victims and why crime is scary. In a psychology class I was in we discussed the idea of plane crashes vs. car crashes. Statistically car crashes kill so many more people yearly, and you might have one plane crass every few years, there are still people worried about the fact a plane can crash. Statistically cars are more dangerous, but people still fear planes because of how much media focuses on those. In North Huntingdon, violent crime rates are pretty low in comparison to national average. I was fairly surprised with the fact property crime rates are still low, but still fairly high in my opinion. I think that the idea of crime rates might be focused on the fact it’s a fairly wealthy area of Westmoreland County. Overall I think that crime is really sensationalized and people just need more guidance.
Crime is “socially constructed” because of how a society perceives certain crimes. In certain areas, where certain crimes are known to be popular, a society may not be affected or bothered by their surroundings. In areas where there are little to no crimes, a larger or uncommon crime may strongly impact a society. I think one potential reason that explains the falling rate of crime in America is that marijuana has been legalized in almost half of the United States (24 states to be exact). This has caused the rate of drug crimes to significantly decrease, which has impacted the overall crime rate. I think that the public tends to believe that crime is becoming more prevalent because they do not take the time to look at true facts. The media often creates a over-emphasized picture when talking about events related to crime, which causes viewers to over-react. The dark figure of crime refers to crimes that exist, but are often not reported. These crimes are important because even though they tend to be minor, committing a minor crime could lead someone to commit an even larger crime in the future. This relates to the Broken Windows Theory and how minor crime and anti-social behavior can create further crime.
I’m very surprised by how the crime rates are falling. If you look at the youth now compared to back then they are clearly more ok with these violent crimes so a lot of crimes go unreported because they think it’s not their problem because it doesn’t affect them. These crime rate reports often are misleading because people will look at them and think these areas are better because of said crime right even if most of the crime is in another area go unreported. People often talk about defunding the police, but don’t realize the problems that will occur if that happens the crime rate will soar. The youth of black communities in particular are often taught to hate the police and that they are the enemy so they often end up being unwilling to work with the police so crimes they see will go unreported.
I have never really looked into crime rates all too much, and I had no clue about its considerable drop. From what I’ve seen on the news it seems crime is very rampant. From what I understand Crime rate is determined by many factors, what crimes are committed, how often are they committed, who are they committed by, and why are they committed. But sometimes without the full understanding of these factors some crimes are considered less frequent because we lose crucial evidence for them. So in my opinion crime rate is not a reliable way to see or country’s crime, and it shouldn’t be taken as solid fact, but instead a guide to what to expect.
Crime is socially constructed because everyone has there own morals and view on the world and society also influences what you believe is criminal, which I believe could possible be a problem because what is criminal in one society may not be in another. Morality is subjective I’m sure many criminals truly believed there wasn’t anything wrong with what they were doing, that could possibly be dangerous because if they see someone else committing the same crime they wont report it, if a whole society is like that then would there even be crime? I believe the internet and increased communication nationally on these types of subjects is part of the reason the crime rate has been falling. Communication is key to getting people on the same page of the injustices and criminal activity that needs to be addressed. Dark figure crime is important because statistics wont be able to fully reflect what is going on in an area and I believe that is why the public thinks crime is becoming more prevalent, people will see, hear and experience crime and not report it for various reasons so their experiences wont align with the data the FBI and BJS.
I believe that people think the crime rate is rising when in reality it’s falling because we have more platforms for people to produce news. As well as more sources for people to create fake news, thus making a surplus of “news”. If social media is now one of the only ways to find out about these crimes I’m not surprised that people make fake news since it’s so easy to just make something up; especially with chatGPT and other AI programs now. Crime is socially constructed because all different parts of the world as well as different religions have different beliefs as to what a true crime is. In Europe, the drinking age is 18; In America if someone saw a 19 year old drinking they would look down on them for doing something illegal. In Christianity, they take adultery very seriously as it’s a sin; whereas most of the lawmakers/general public probably just think it’s wrong, not necessarily a law needing rule. When I looked into my hometowns crime rate, (Marysville, Washington) it was 16.63% ( http://www.neighborhoodscout.com ) per 1,000 residents including property and general violence. I believe this is because the majority of the crimes we get are homeless people stealing/ breaking into stores. I feel like Washington in general is a pretty safe state.
The “dark figure of crime” refers to crimes that do not get reported to anyone in power that could do something about it. The “dark figure of crime” is so important because of the amount of crimes and severity of the crimes that go unreported. The amount of crimes that go unreported not only harm the data, by making it inaccurate, but it also harms the community that the crimes happen in, and could even harm communities surrounding. If a crime goes unreported to police and the offender continues owing what they are doing, it harms everyone physically, mentally, and emotionally. The offender might physically harm them because they continue to get away with the crime that they are committing. Or the victims are being mentally harmed with the constant worry about where the offender is going to strike next, or the victims might constantly think about the offender, stressing themselves out. Which would then lead into the unreported crime being emotionally harmful. If the victims are constantly stressed out or overwhelmed they might unconsciously change their diet, exercise routine, or they might not be their usual happy selves. Or they might end up not trusting police because they noticed that nothing is being done about the crime, whether they know it was reported or not, and think to themselves that they will not report anything because nothing is being done about it in the first place. Which then leads back into mental harm and physical harm. It is one big continuous cycle that will never change. If people are too physically, mentally, or emotionally unable to tell authorities about a crime that is happening, the crime is never going to stop. It is only going to get worse and could end up being too big for authorities to eventually try to stop.
The social structure would represent the overall shape of that society. I find the definition of sociology very interesting. It simply means that society’s ideology determines the definition of crime. In different societies, the definition of crime is different. Like, the difference in the judgment of abortion. The data and reports related to crime are the foundations upon which the entire crime structure is built. It is the laying of these foundations that has led to present-day criminology, which is the equivalent of defining the behavior associated with crime. The definition of crime gives rise to society’s constraints and requirements on people’s behavior, that is to say, the existence of relevant laws and moral boundaries are caused by this. Of course, because of the existence of “rules”, there are people who will “break the rules”.
Another thing that surprised me was the fact that the article refers to a “gradual decline in crime”. This is quite contrary to my impression of the situation. In the media and news, there are often reports of various crimes, and the language is used to put people in a state of nervousness and fear. This is coupled with the experience of the Shinkansen outbreak, which has resulted in more and more people losing their jobs and families. In an economic downturn, it is understandable that the crime rate has risen. However, it is clear that the so-called “logical truth” may not always be the truth. Just like the reduction rate of crime. But I am still happy about the declining crime rate; after all, a harmonious society is what all people aspire to.
It has been studied whether social media and news organizations’ propensity to report unfavorable news is a factor in America’s rising crime rates. Because of this, the general public tends to think that crime has been increasing. Commonly, crime is a contentious issue that cuts over racial divides. This distributes information about how crimes are committed and handled locally. Despite the fact that thousands of arrests are made every day, the public primarily hears about the police’s bad actions, which makes them appear unreliable. People begin to doubt the police after hearing such news reports and begin to believe that addressing the matter on their own is preferable to asking for assistance. When attempting to report crime data accurately, the surprisingly high crime rates provide challenges. Depending on how their society sees crime, many victims can be hesitant to report a crime or might think the conduct was not a serious problem. The victim may feel that it is not necessary to disclose the crime if their community does not necessarily regard it as criminal in nature, which is one way in which the social construction of crime has an impact on dark figures. Additionally, victims may not want to discuss a crime they witnessed or may feel awkward doing so. Less dangerous environments must be created if society wants to encourage crime victims to publicly discuss their circumstances.
Crime is socially constructed in that it’s not an inherent, fixed concept but rather shaped by societal norms, values, and institutions. What society sees as criminal behavior can evolve over time, influenced by many things. Some are cultural shifts, political agendas, and economic conditions. Factors such as race, class, and gender I feel, also play a significant role in this construction, as they can lead to the labeling and perception of certain behaviors or individuals as criminal. As for the falling rate of crime in the U.S., several potential reasons could contribute to this trend. These include improved economic opportunities, advancements in law enforcement strategies and technology, changes in drug policies, and a decline in the youth population. Many people would be able to get jobs if there was more assistance. I feel that it’s important to recognize that the causes of crime and its fluctuations are multifaceted and interconnected, making it essential to approach crime reduction with a holistic and evidence-based perspective. Many crimes happen based off survival instincts that most people are put in as well. This is usually based off where people live and are from.
Crime is “socially constructed” because society’s view of different things is what makes them crimes. In different areas, the people there may see the same action, behavior, or event in a different way. As a result, different areas have different punishments or no punishment at all for the same thing. For example, many states in the U.S. have legalized marijuana, but many states still have laws making marijuana completely illegal. Within the same country, people in different areas have different views of the same thing and the laws in their areas reflect that.
The increased potential for cameras to capture evidence could explain the falling rate of crime in the U.S. While at first it may seem like higher chances of getting caught on video would increase the crime rate because more people would get caught, the higher chances of getting caught deters people from committing crimes like they did a long time ago when cameras were less advanced and not used as much as today. Additionally, since the invention of the smartphone, many people today will start recording as soon as they see a crime taking place. The knowledge that someone will easily be able to take a video of a crime makes people not want to commit crimes.
The “dark figure of crime” is the amount of crimes that are known because of reporting of observers and/or victims, but they do not get reported or recorded by law enforcement agencies. These crimes are important because the failure to report these crimes makes the accuracy of official sources of crime statistics questionable.
I think the public tends to believe crime is becoming more prevalent, even though statistics show (with some exceptions) that it is falling almost everywhere in the U.S. because of the prevalence of social media. Today, crimes often get posted onto social media to be viewed for anyone on the internet. Many people today go onto social media and see videos of crimes posted there. Access to online news sources also makes knowledge of crimes more accessible. In the past, only major crimes made it to the news and not everyone looked at that.
When I looked at the crime rate for my local area, North Huntingdon, I learned that the crime rate was much lower than the national average. This makes sense as I have always thought that the area is pretty safe to live in.
Crime is a complex issue with numerous causes and many more solutions, most of which have not yet been implemented on a large scale. For hundreds of years, we have practiced the same techniques of punishment to deter crime, yet it often leads to reincarceration. This poses the question “What Caused the Crime Decline?” Analyzing crime rates and statistics, in addition to testing new theories, is key. To prevent crime, we must compare the atmospheres, environments, and social factors of low and high crime areas to determine what factors contribute to lower crime. Another issue in need of repair is that of public perception. If most people feel that crime is on the rise, we must evaluate why they come to this conclusion by conducting studies and surveys, for instance, whether mainstream media and heavy emphasis on reporting cases of violent crimes contributes to this public perception. To further understand crime, it is also important to encourage citizens to accurately report crime as it occurs. An example given is that 61% of domestic abuse gets reported, meaning that over a third of domestic abuse incidents are unknown by police. To increase report counts we must implement social measures to help the victim and ensure their safety and wellbeing. Overall there is a lot of work needed to fix our current system, from social policies to new rehabilitation techniques, we must do as much as we can to reduce crime and prevent injustices from occurring.
The figure that is “Dark Crime” is referring to the criminal acts that are occurring all throughout society that haven’t been filed by the police whether they did or didn’t have anyknowledge of the criminal act. The reason why it is such important information to tell people about is the misconception of “Dark Crime”. Many people are aware of crimes that are coming from criminals committing crimes, like drugs, gangs, rape, money laundering. But many only associate those crimes being done by low income individuals or wealthy people who made their money dirty and are open about it. But the scariest part of “Dark Crime” is that it happens at the highest levels of wealth and society, crime doesn’t only fit one type of class of people, there are many “legit” business people who commit crimes but have the money to cover it up or has the money to bury it even with convictions. And that is why it needs to be more informed to others so we as society can see that a lot of the stuff owned and business, even governments are ran from some of the worst crimes that could be committed. the one thing people don’t tend to realize about crime and wealth is, the reason why poor criminals get locked up more is because they lack the means to be truly educated to “protect” them like wealth criminals do but the real reason is they don’t have the funds and they fall victim to the stereotype of what a primal looks like.
With how the current society is, people could be unnerved to relate their records. With this being said, the “faint figure of bad behavior” is a bad behavior that isn’t represented and not known about. Infringement can go unreported considering numerous variables, but the issue that this causes is touchy bad behavior estimations.
This post falls short of the required 150 words…also, please explain what is the “faint figure of bad behavior”? Also, what are bad behavior estimations?
Crime rate is something that I believe many people are oblivious too. If I’m being honest, without looking at the statistics by the FBI and BJS I would have said what many other Americans said. Crime rate is higher even though the statistics show that it is lower. The reason I believe American citizens have such a different view on crime rate is because they believe that crime only happens where they are not, it also stated that many Americans believe that crime rate is down where they live. And I think many factors add into this reasoning by many Americans. But I think the number one cause for Americans thinking this is solely because of the media. I think the media puts such a twisted point of view on crime and that is why Americans are so oblivious to the actual stats. One other very interesting thing I thought about was, so many Americans think putting people in prison for a long time is good because they are taking criminals off the street. But, they are paying for them to be locked. Crime rate and incarceration are two things I think the average American is oblivious too and I blame a lot of this on the media.
In my personal opinion I think if it wasn’t for people talking about crimes, a lot of them wouldn’t even be known about. While there are some crimes that do still get swept under the rug, I think if it weren’t for people talking about them there would be a lot more we didn’t know. Some crimes might also seem normal because just like we talk about in class, such places as Baltimore see crimes everyday and it’s almost normal for them to just experience it. Honestly when it comes to crimes today it is almost normal with tv shows now adding current day crime into them and then you see it on the news and on some social media platforms.I also think with the setting of some of the shows it is promoting that there is more bad crime going on in places where they really aren’t taking place, so it is making some places look worse than they really are. In some places some crimes may be overlooked or not taken as seriously, where in other places crimes may be always looked at and questioned. The crime rate is falling because it either isn’t being taken as serious in certain places or some people may be scared to come forward or be judged for what crime they seen. As said in the “ Dark Crime “ crimes could go unreported for various reasons whether it be the fear of reporting the crimes or a fear of the police, the important take away is that failure to report these crimes calls into the question the accuracy of social sources of crime statistics. So without all crimes being reported or certain people speaking up and reporting them we will never have a real answer to the crime rate and these certain things.
After reading this article i learned that variations in crime rates are way more complicated than i anticipated. A potential reason I believe explains the falling rate of crime in the US, is the lack of reports. For example, opinion surveys such as “Gallup” and “Pew” surveys state that when Americans were asked if they believe crime rates are decreasing, they gave the opposite answer. Citizens instead believe that crime is actually increasing wherever they are. This section of the article was most interesting because I can agree. It seems as though crime is all we see, especially with increasing technology advances. Criminologists use the term “dark figure crime,” to explain crime that is observed by witnesses but is not reported. I have seen many cases where bystanders choose to not get “involved” when they see someone in trouble and instead look the other way (mostly domestic). In psychology this is called the bystander effect; people feel the need to help but choose not to anyway. This usually results in someone getting away with a crime therefore never being reported. I also feel that social media and the news play a part in Americans believing crime is only going up. Ninety-five percent of the time when we watch the news, it is crime being reported such as burglary and shootings. With that being said, I believe there is a lot of social impacts when violence is involved in an area so it makes it harder for researches and police to have accurate numbers for the US.
After reading the article, I learned a bunch of topics and vocabulary that I did not know before. Personally, I was surprised that crime has been declining since the 1990’s. I believed that crime was higher than it actually is, and a lot of others believe the same thing. I think the main reason a lot of people think this is because of the media. The media likes to emphasize when there is a crime and only post the negatives because that is what gets the most attention. One reason I feel like crime has may have been decreasing over time is due to the increased number in the police force. Having more police can help keep the crime rate lower. Also, I learned about the dark figures of crime. This term was first used by Adolphe Quetelet, a Belgian mathematician and sociologist, and refers to when crime is present but is not reported by law enforcement. This is important because not reporting these types of crimes can lead to inaccurate crime statistics throughout the states. In North Huntingdon, we have a 10.1% rate for violent crime and 23.6% rate for property crime, both of which are lower than the U.S. average. This doesn’t surprise me. Most of the time when I hear crime on the news in this area, it’s about burglary and theft. Rarely is it about more violent crimes like murder.
There are two main points discussed in the post that I would like to touch on. One is that the majority of people view that the national crime rate is higher than the year before and that a lot of crimes are not reported to law enforcement. First, in my opinion, a big reason why people think crime is going up is because of the media. Whether that be social media or news media, people mostly see those bad things that happen nationwide because that’s what gets clicks or views. The news never has segments on how the crime rate in a certain city is down but they always seem to have a story about a big shooting or a murder that happened that week. The news is a business and is focused on getting views and attention and good things are not what gets people’s attention. The second point about crimes not being reported to police can also be partly because of the media. Of the thousands of arrests that go on every day, you only see the stories of a cop doing wrong and that sways the public opinion against them and their effectiveness. Seeing things like that on the news makes people less confident in the police and makes people think that they would be better off handling the problem themselves than asking for help from the police. The media shows the worst in society and hurts the public and the government agencies designed to help them. I may be completely wrong but I believe the media hold some responsibility for these two points.
Seeing that the crime rate has declined over the years is surprising to me but that is probably because I really do not pay much attention to the news or things that correlate to it. Now knowing that the sentencing is harsher and longer than before it makes sense that the crime rates are going down, people are aware of the now consequences and they either stop doing illegal things or do it quieter and not get caught. Through extending the sentences we have to incarcerate and keep so many people locked up and pay for them with money that the government can not afford to give away, because of this we lose funding to so many other important things. The crime rate in my area is 1 in every 360 which slightly surprises me because there’s not many people in my community but I know a few personally that have been victimized by crime and the justice system
I’m very surprised to see after reading this article that our crime rates are slowly decreasing. Along with the others, i thought crime is rising as we speak. We just follow what is portrayed on social media, even if its not true. Some areas have higher crime rates, but that doesn’t mean its any worse with an area of a lower rate. Even if someone witnessed something bad happen, they most likely wouldn’t report . This is the dark figure of a crime. The fear the police or other various reasons let crimes go unreported. This could lead to an innocent person be seen as guilty if not reported. All these acts and behaviors come from an orientations known as “socially constructed”. We think the meaning to crime is socially defined which leads to social change. These behaviors become crimes through this process. Everywhere you look there is crime, but people may see it as normal.
Crime rates are affected by several societal factors including, age, demographics, poverty level, and population differences. Many of these factors are usually widespread in certain areas. An area that was including the increase of murder rates by 3% was Chicago. Geographically most people who aren’t aware of this crime spike may not have even realize how high poverty presence, and lack of resources available affect the incline of crime rates. Other places like St. Louis and Baltimore have a lot of these factors in common the density of population could dramatically be affected by this. Most states tend to charge the populations money up so resources that should be common aren’t. For example, access to clean water, food, education, living. A trend this article also went over was how inaccurate those stats could have been from the FBI source. Most Americans don’t recognize the increase or decrease of crime. A good line in the article specifically said most Americans denied the increase of criminal activity on the more local level, even though data showed otherwise. Social problems that are continuously affected by these policing politics thrive which only make such acts worse. This will spike the criminal activity and financial spending in the long run. A very important topic that is not discussed a lot, is the dark figure of crime. Thus, helps crime rates become unrecorded. Agencies who don’t take into consideration the crime committed negatively affects data. It stops the accuracy and consistency of the rates. Several reasons could be considered when asking why this occurs. Could be the fear for one’s life. Gang violence can be a perfect example of criminal icebergs. “Snitches will be delt with’. Overall, several factors play into the accuracy and gathered data rates.
In the article, many different concepts and definitions relating to crime were discussed. To begin, the article discusses how crime is a social construct, because how and what actions we define as criminal are based on subjective feelings on what actions should be illegal. For example, during Prohibition, the production and selling of alcohol were criminalized due to the subjective feelings of the Temperance Movement. One of the definitions discussed is the dark figure of crime, a term coined by Belgian sociologist Adolphe Quetelet in 1832, which refers to crimes that are known to have happened but are not recorded by law enforcement. They often meet the definition of a recordable crime but do not get included in official statistics. A common example of this type of crime is domestic abuse, in which the abused may be afraid or unwilling to report the abuse to authorities. This aspect of crime is important, since policymakers may not have the correct information to help those struggling with crime. Fortunately, the amount of crime in the US has gone down significantly since the 1990s. There could be a few potential reasons that can explain this drop, one of which could be the decline in demand for illicit drugs, particularly crack cocaine. Another reason could be that younger people tend to commit crime more than older people, and that baby boomers began to “age out” of crime. However, many Americans are under the perception that crime is on the rise. I believe that the public belief in the rise of crime can be solely attributed to the media. The media, to attract viewers, will often discuss exciting stories, and crime stories are a category of this. They also do this with airplane crashes, the number of which has gone down over time, and eating Tide Pods, a relatively rare phenomenon.
I think that the majority of citizens in the United States feel that crime is a massive problem due to the way it’s depicted in the media and news outlets. This surprises people when they learn that the crime rate in the Untied States is decreasing. The reason for this decreasing crime rate is difficult to pinpoint due a number of factors. One of these factors is the definition of a crime itself. We as a society define crimes through laws and social constructions which changes the definition of a crime over time. One crime that happened in 1950 may not be considered a crime today and therefore would not be counted as a statistic in the crime rates. Another reason crime could be decreasing is the advancements of security technology over the years such as airport security, cameras, and the internet. These act as a deterrent to criminals as they cannot easily get away with a crime if there are cameras or security watching them. When these people are under constant fear of being watched, another issue comes up which is the dark figure of crime. These crimes are committed but never reported by observers or victims. This figure alone could mean that crime could be increasing in society but we would have no way of knowing as they aren’t being reported and kept track of. Overall, crime rates are a difficult to interpret figure as we have many ambiguities in society about crime.
Seeing that crime rates have decreased, does not alleviate the effects of it, nor diminishes the idea that crime will evermore exist and increase again. A crime is constructed when a society collectively decides when actions that harm or could potentially harm others are unacceptable. However, based on this definition, crime is subject to change. What may be an unforgivable act in one city, state, or country, could be a social norm in another. For example: marijuana is now legal in nineteen U.S. states. This could also be a factor in the decrease as far as drug crime rates go. As society is changing and evolving, so are crimes and laws, thus explaining a decrease. On the contrary, people perceive that crimes have increased. This we can thank media and the internet for. Over the last two decades, media has spread exponentially. When people are watching the news and soaking in every drastic event, they are bound to believe the world is becoming more dangerous.
Though, what I’ve learned about crime rates is that they cannot be accurately measured. Dark figure crimes are crimes hidden or not reported to authorities due to severity of crime or fear. Dark figure crimes can be more dangerous because not only does it create inaccurate data, but serious crimes should be reported for just measures to be taken to help the situation. Moreover, surveys can collect incoherent answers during research, dark figure crimes create a bridge between the truth, and crimes committed on the internet are just a click away from disappearing. Crime rates are difficult to calculate, as crimes themselves are constantly changing.
After reading this article I was very surprised to see that crime in the US is falling. I am also guilty just like the others in the article of thinking that crime in the US is rising even though the data shows crime declining, and I think social media and what we see on the internet play a huge role in that. Social media likes to show the negative things that go on in the world because that is what’s going to get the greatest number of views and likes and that is why people in this generation including myself think a lot of crime and bad things are happening even though the data show the opposite. There is no exact answer to the fall in crime in the US, but the article talks about how the growth of people going to prison played a minor role in decreasing crime in the US. Some potential reasons why I think the crime rate might be going down is because of incarceration, the increasing number of police, and job availability. The dark figure of crime is crimes that happen and don’t get reported to the police. The dark figure of crime happens a lot in the world and where I’m from because nobody likes to speak up and report to the police because they don’t want to seem like a “snitch”. The dark figure of crime is important because crimes that don’t get reported to the police make the world a more dangerous place because there are criminals out committing crimes. What I learned about the crime rate in Rochester, NY was that we have a crime rate of 41 per 1,000 residents which makes us one of the highest in America compared to all communities of all sizes.
The crime rates in America have been looked at if it was increasing due to most news and social media platforms only putting the negativity out there for people to see. Therefore, most people tend to believe crime rates have been rising. Crimes are generally among a big topic that is talked from one cultural group to another. This spreads word about how crimes are being constructed and dealt with in local areas. Reasons for the decrease in crime could simply be from increased imprisonment to aging of the population. I believe that more people could be starting to get a sense that everyone is human and there’s no right action into committing a crime against someone or doing something to hurt themselves. I also believe a stronger economy with increased law enforcement could have lowered crime rate. “Dark figure of crime” is an analogy referring to crime that is being committed in a local area or society, but it is not being reported by law enforcement. This could definitely have an effect on why numbers of crime rate is dropping because the crime is simply not being reported.
In the U.S. we are socially influenced that crime makes up what is right or wrong. Our feeling of a criminal offense is what we view deserves a sanction. In other countries what we view as right, they may view as wrongful actions. I was shocked to see that the crime rate has fallen since the early 90’s. I believe a reason the crime rate has changed is based on new advancements and new creations. There are a lot more opportunities, which will help stop someone from committing a crime. For example, there are a lot more jobs that anyone could be qualified for, which helps a lot more people not have any free time to use their conscious to persuade them to do wrong. I also feel technology has helped people realize what to do and not to do. Back then it was probably normal to go steal from a candy store, but now you would face sanctions for that crime. Social norms have changed since the 90’s. The “dark figure of crime” is when a criminal offense is off the records. People may not report crimes to not put themselves in further danger, hide the identity of a criminal, or even protect a higher authority. If a gang member gets busted by a specific officer, that officer is now in danger with that gang. I feel the public tends to believe crime has became more prevalent because of things being more publicized. If everyday you see another person being murdered or detained, how is the crime rate fallen? Going back to the “dark figure of time,” if not everything is recorded, how would someone get the right statistic of crime rate? Through my research I found that in Elizabeth PA, the property crime rate is 20.3% and violent crime is 8.7%. In Elizabeth, it is more common to hear about theft or burglary than murder. A few years ago I heard a lot about cars being broken into at a neighborhood near my house. Elizabeth is such a tiny neighborhood that you do not really hear anything about violent crimes being committed.
In my local area, near Philadelphia, crime is common as it is ranked as the 8th most crime infested city in America. The homicide rate is above average and the area alone is triple the crime rate of Pennsylvania as a whole. The crime rate is falling as a whole nationwide, but many people would not believe this even with statistics. There are many reasons for this including the local news showing all the heavy crime and in your local area to draw eyes through entertainment and blowing crime out of proportion. This also includes social media, so If people are only being fed crime, then they will believe there is a lot of crime occurring. Also, some people only live in the city, where crime rates are the highest. They are so used to seeing crime that they do not realize crime is not as prevalent in other communities as it is in theirs. Potential reasons for the falling crime rate is that more people are getting incarcerated more, so more crime is off the street. Also, I think because of the unemployment rate decreasing, more people are getting jobs. This means more people are receiving incomes and work throughout the day, so there are no reasons to perform criminal acts. Though it seems the crime rate is decreasing, is it truly decreasing as much as statistics show? This question is due to the “dark figure of crime”, which is crime seen and observed, but not recorded to or even by authority. This is important because of the skewed statistics and it shows how crime is socially constructed. This shows that in society many people look at simple crimes as fine and may not even realize what people are doing are crimes because they never see the basic crimes on TV or social media.
I found the whole article to be interesting, but the rate of crimes really surprised me. I think that today, people believe crime rates are up because we focus on all the negative things in our country. We see new posts on social media almost every day talking about more recent crimes. The problem with this is that social media overexaggerates. Because of all the posts we see, we believe that murders happen daily. When people get that idea in their mind, along with the consideration of unreported crimes, it’s easy to believe that the rates are increasing.
Although experts say they know the true statistics, it’s impossible to calculate them correctly. “Dark figure crime” refers to crimes that were committed, but not reported. The article gives data from different areas and the percentage of crimes reported. For example, only half of the violent crimes were reported in 2015. Therefore, experts can’t calculate the true rate of crimes meaning the information we have now is somewhat inaccurate.
After reading this article I definitely would not believe that the crime in the United States is falling, but with the new information I have just read definitely challenged my point o view that crime has been increasing. Two highly regarded crime statistic institutions have both found very similar data that point to the same conclusion. Fewer crimes are occurring over the last roughly 25 years of reported data. With violent and nonviolent alike are seeing huge percentages drops.
This is very reassuring but still concerning that many Americans are still under the impression crime is rising.
The dark figure of crime is very easy to understand, it is the umbrella word of all of the crimes that have been committed but have not been reported by law enforcement. With these dark crimes there could be victims or witnesses who are the ones who saw the crime or were involved and that is the only way of knowing that the crime existed.
After reading through the article given, I was surprised to see that the crime rate has been falling since the 90s. Throughout the media, it is always portrayed as if the crime rate increased a lot. Especially when talked about by political figures. I think with a combination of media and what people see every day in their lives believe them to think the crime rate has increased.
Although the crime rate has decreased, I do think that it is impossible to see the accurate numbers of crime over the world. This is due to “dark figure crime” stated in the article. This is all the crimes that go unreported by police or even the victims of said crime. Depending on where one is from this can affect the way they report crimes as well. Speaking from a perspective of a person of color I notice in the Black community sometimes people do not want to call the police. This can be out of fear or even lack of faith in police help. In conclusion, crime rates are fairly inaccurate due to things like dark figure crime.
The crime rate progressively going in a downward trend reflects many of our society’s advances. The credit card drastically reduces the threat of getting mugged on the street due to you not having cash, while an innocent bystander has the ability to dial 911 on their phone across the street. People do not like witnessing crime and especially violent crimes. So then why has the violent crime rate been on a rise in recent years?
Political tensions seem to have been on the rise especially in the mainstream media in recent years which has been the soul purpose of many riots and protests within the recent two elections, most notably in 2020. Then add COVID-19 into the mix where society is still in disagreement over today. The numbers of the most recent year would be very interesting to look at as there seems to have been much more media coverage on these occurrences.
Although there are ways that crime rate is determined as stated in the post, it’s hard to truly figure out how many crimes are actually committed. There are so many people living in the U.S., so is it really realistic to think that the crime rates are accurate? In addition, depending on the location and social standards, what could be considered a crime might not be a crime to others. There are so many different cities, neighborhoods, and even cultures among our own citizens. Life in a city is completely different from life in a suburban or rural area. Small crimes such as theft or shoplifting aren’t as big of a deal as they are in smaller towns. This causes the data to be even more inaccurate. In addition, the dark figure of crime is another way that people can report crimes through social media. These crimes do not get directly reported to any law enforcement agency which puts the crime rate data off even more. People also fail to report crimes due to the fact that many people are scared and/or don’t believe that the police could help them or do anything about the situation. So in conclusion, the crime rate statistics are fairly inaccurate and should just be interpreted as a baseline or estimate of crime due to the fact that there are a lot of loopholes and faulty areas in the system.
I believe that the public think this continues to be a problem today because the murder rates have increased in recent years. Plenty of crime rates are dropping in places like St.Louise, Baltimore, and Chicago but the murder rates are rising. Also the public is more supportive towards longer jail time and that requires more funds, which leaves us with little funds for rewatch and education. People should want to have that but if the crime rates are dropping why worry?. Another is I believe the media continues to play a major role in this because they could make it sound more than what it actually was. I feel the public sees it as that in the charts from 1993 to 2015 crime rates have decreased. Therefore between the years 2014-2015 there have been shown slight increase in crime but in 2016 there was a 3% increase.
The vast majority of crimes where I am from, about a half an hour away north of Milwaukee a city commonly referred to as one of the murder capitals of the world has a very low solved/reported crime statistic. I feel that it is very common knowledge to the average person that crime happens all around us, but where my thought process takes me in a different direction is the severity of those crimes. How many people actually report vandalism? It is a crime that in some cases results in jail time, but for the most part it goes unspoken about in the communities that it happens in. Or what about damage to a vehicle, this might be different depending on the circumstance but I know it is not uncommon for people of my age group or slightly younger to egg cars or do similar damage. This sometimes results in chipped paint or cracked windshields, and yet the victim of the crime most of the time reports nothing to the authorities. My personal take on this is simple: people don’t want to report these sorts of crimes because it is more trouble than it’s worth. Take for instance a more dangerous example, abuse in relationships. Due to unfortunate circumstances and also Stockholm syndrome many people in these dangerous situations feel it is better to deal with the problem themselves and not involve the authorities. I also think that there is a certain stigma when involving the police, it can make civilians very uncomfortable just having an officer drive behind them even though they are maintaining the legal speed limit, so there is an argument to make that this anxiety can be amplified if they are involved in criminal matters. Of course the “dark figure of crime” has much more behind it then the average person being a bit anxious around police officers but that is one of the main points that sticks out in my mind when discussing this particular topic.
The first thing you think of when someone says crime you either think about a shooting or a person doing something really bad to be put in jail. As we see in the real world people watch the news and that’s the really only thing they bring up is the crime in the neighbor hood or in the city. If it wasn’t for all of this technology nor television people wouldn’t know about most of the crimes that happen each and every day. When it comes to the dark figure of crime. Those are the crimes that do not get put out on the television nor the internet so know one really knows what has happened or occurred. There are many reasons for this. The first reason that there is dark figure of crimes is so that the people involved don’t get brought up into the news. For example gang members or people who are known so there isn’t retaliation. The next reason for this is to save the police department. This is the highest reason because they don’t want to get harassed nor have their department looking bad for either not solving the crime or having any idea on what happened or who was involved. As in todays world since I want to be a cop I have been following what happens down the south side which is a dangerous place. But most of the shootings or crimes do not get put out there because off how much goes on and what they can’t figure out.
As many may agree, the meaning of a word or action will differ depending on social standards and location. With this in mind, crime is a social construction, because the meaning of what is considered criminal naturally differs from one society to the next. In turn, this meaning can influence the rate at which people commit what one may consider being a crime. For example, the age limit of drinking in the U.S. is 21, and underage drinking is highly frowned upon by the law, however, because of this, more people tend to participate in underage drinking than they would in a country with a lower drinking age limit (e.g., Germany). Regarding the falling crime rate in the U.S., I think one of the reasons crime rates have been decreasing is because of a push to legalize and decriminalize acts that were once considered crimes, for example, possession of certain drugs. With violent crimes and murders, however, I think the rate is decreasing partially because of a decrease in unemployment, (not considering 2020). The dark figure of crime refers to an unreported or unrecorded crime that occurs. Crime is likely unreported due to the fear of police and modern-day policing tactics, and the fear of being arrested rather than receiving help. As far as unrecorded crimes go, I think they are left unrecorded, because of complacency and a lack of proper procedure when dealing with said crimes. When it comes to people’s perception of the crime rate, I think politicians referencing crime rate as they campaign, and the media’s influence over what the public hears every day causes people to believe that the crime rate is higher than what the data suggest. To elaborate, the spread of misinformation through people like politicians and popular media sources can, and does, cause people to believe that crime rates are higher than they truly are. The overall crime rate in my local area, that being McKeesport, is around 47 per 1,000 residents, with a violent crime rate of around 17 per 1,000 residents, and a property crime rate of around 30 per 1,000 residents, which is higher than that of the state’s crime rate.
The dark figure of crime defines the cases of crimes reported by victims or witnesses, that are not reported as an official statistic of recorded crime. These crimes are not reported to police for a plethora of reasons. One of the reasons could be that people are afraid to report these crimes to police, because of the fear of repercussions that could be a result of calling the police. An example of this could be drug overdoses. Like we discussed in class, many people choose not to call the police in an event like this considering they could be charged with possession or even worse if someone were to be fatally injured in their presence. Another reason people choose not to call the police is to protect the person who would be convicted with a crime, such as in a domestic violence case. On the other hand, people that are more likely to commit crimes against each other, such as gangs or drug dealers, would not want to draw the attention of law enforcement, or simply are against “snitching”. It is important that these crimes are reported to give us an accurate measurement of the crime rate in our country. I believe that if we could change the way law enforcement handles some cases such as drug abuse, the dark figure of crime would be decreased, however, there will always be some people who refuse to report crimes to the police.
All politicians love to sell us false promises of security. Where they assure us that they will achieve a decrease in violence, one way or another. But the reality is that what they do is blind us with words, because in the end no matter how much they talk and promise, they do not carry out the necessary actions to make the United States a safer place. So we are content to listen to the crime rate numbers offered to us by various sources. Despite the fact that there is no way to be sure that these numbers are an accurate figure, since these figures are obtained from police reports.
But then, why is it that if an entire society desires change we continue to see an increase in criminal cases? Perhaps the reason is that like most things in our society the concept of crime is something that is built to control human beings. This is probably why for some people crime is decreasing over the years, while for others it is increasing. The concept of crime as a social construct is affected by time and the changing generations. Some will think that stealing a piece of bread is not a bad thing so they don’t report it; while others may come to think that it is something that should be criminalized. This happens with other crimes that we used to consider serious as a society and today we think it is something minor that can be solved without a court proceeding. Let’s add to this the lack of trust towards the police that has been created over the years, as we all know they are there but the reality is that when you look at the streets you can see how the police system fails time after time. It fails that mother who cries inconsolably because her son was murdered or that girl who went out drinking and was sexually abused. In both cases promises of justice can be heard but often remain empty words. So it is totally normal to see how the rate of violence goes down over the years despite the fact that crimes are on the rise. Because if you put together a corrupt judicial system with a lack of budget you can only get inconclusive cases and false promises of catching culprits. This leads to the fact that when we are victims of a crime we question whether it is serious enough to report it.
I think the public tends to think that there has been a surge in crime rate due to the fact that a large portion of the news is dedicated to only addressing the crime and violence around the area. This coincidentally makes people believe that the crime rate is rising, but in reality the crime rate has been on a steady decrease, dating all the back to 1993. I also believe that the use of technology has been a huge reason for the decreasing trend of crime rate. Technology has helped give justice to many and is the reason there is such a decline in crime. Nowadays, a picture, video or text message is some times the only evidence that one needs to stop a crime before it happens and makes the news. This new era is also just another reason that supports the decline in crime rate. Although, people may say that the decline is only due to the dark figure of crime I believe that as false. I believe that as false due to cell phones, if you think about it, it has never been easier to get ahold of people compared to the 1990’s and-early 2000’s.
I don’t think the crime rate is actually falling. I think anyone living in America who pays even the slightest amount of attention to the news can say that it seems like the crime rate has increased or society has become more dangerous. The only difference now is that citizens are not reporting a lot of these crimes. I believe that what we see on television and in the news is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what’s really occurring in our neighborhoods. That is where the dark figure of crime comes in. The dark figure of crime refers to crimes that remain hidden or unreported to police, therefore hidden from society. This is obviously important because it causes crime rates and statistics to be inaccurate. Additionally, that is quite frightening as a citizen to realize that you really don’t know what is occurring in your neighborhood. The public tends to believe that crime is more prevalent despite the statistics, because it is. They know what they hear and see about on the news, they also hear about families suffering every time they lose a loved one to violence. They also watch this same family never receive justice for losing their loved on to violence. We watch this happen constantly.
The dark figure of crime refers to the crimes that are committed but not reported to the police but rather tracked by the Bureau of Justice Statistics(BJS). The problem with the dark figure of crime is that since these crimes are not being reported more criminals are still out there and are likely to commit more crimes. It also provides inaccurate information for crime rates due to them not being reported. As it states in 2015 only about half of violent crimes were reported. This could cause misleading information that crime rate is decreasing when it is actually increasing which could then lead to less efforts going towards stopping these types of crimes since they aren’t seen as an issue since they aren’t being reported.
One reason that could explain the decrease in crime is the increase in technology. More and more places are being equipped with surveillance. This can be viewed as a form of deterrence because people will be seen on camera and the cameras could catch their license plates as they try to get away or be caught through facial recognition.
The dark figure of crime refers to the crimes that are committed but do not get reported to the police. This is important for multiple reasons. One of them is that if a crime isn’t reported to the police, the police may not be able to deal with the criminal which is a problem if they’re causing some kind of harm. Another issue with this is that it indicates that some people may not want to report crimes to police. Let’s say that there’s someone who went to a party and engaged in underage drinking. The same person who engaged in underage drinking then gets sexually assaulted at the party. While this person may want to report this normally, because they were drinking at the party, they might have a fear that police will punish them for drinking alcohol, leading to them to not report it. this in turn leaves the person who committed sexual assault safe and potentially able do this again to another person in the future. Some criminals might even deliberately only go after victims who they know won’t go to the police in order to get away with whatever crime they wish to do.
The crime rate in Atlanta, Georgia is shockingly, more than double the United States in average crime rate. The United States average is at 22.7 percent, while Atlanta is at 55.3 percent. Although this is the number of violent crimes, the Atlanta versus United States property crimes follow the same trend. The United States property crime average is at 35.4 percent while Atlanta specifically is at 75.4 percent. The reason crime rates are so high could be because of the higher population, or the fact that Atlanta has a high vehicle theft rate, at 1 in every 100 people or 1,178 per 100,000 residents of the city. Another specific crime in Atlanta that specifically raises the crime rate to the metro area is assault. Assault cases in Atlanta are again at a high rate of 813 per 100,000 residents, which is only comparable to the United States city of Philadelphia.
The reason why the perceived crime rate is higher today could be due to a number of reasons. First and foremost, the media plays a huge role in how we perceive crime. There is never a day on the news where a crime isn’t reported, and that leads us to believe that it is constantly happening 24/7. In reality, the media only shows a glimpse of the crime that is going on within a specific area, because that’s all they can do. They can never report every single crime committed within a given city every day. News reports also usually highlight the most violent crimes of the recent days/months, so that leads us to believe that’s the normal occurrence in our area. Another factor I believe that leads us to think crime is rising is opposing political views. Each party reports crime differently and has different beliefs for what is and what isn’t deviant. For example, a large portion of misdemeanor crimes could’ve gone done without anyone knowing because marijuana is legal in many states now even though we still see it as an illegal street drug.
What is the “dark figure of crime: and why is it important?
The dark figure of crime refers to the crime that happens but isn’t reported. This is important because with out reporting we don’t have the accurate crime rate in communities across America. The reasons why this goes unreported is believed that the victims feel the police will not help or their issues are not important enough. It was stated earlier in the post that more than 60% of domestic abuse goes unreported. This causes larger and long term societal challenges. Other violent crimes that aren’t reported will allow the criminal to continue or repeat his/her criminal behavior. These unreported crimes can also result in cities or communities not receiving the proper resources to fight crime. potential solutions are law enforcement building trust in their local communities through community outreach programs and agencies utilizing all communication tools to broadcast the importance of getting the necessary help. I believe once trust is built, and real corrective solutions are easily available these unreported crimes will start to be reported.
Why do you think the public tends to believe crime is becoming more prevalent, even though statistics show (with some exceptions) that it is falling almost everywhere in the U.S.?
I believe the public tends to believe that whatever they see on social media, the news, or what they hear is true. Why would the news lie? Of course that is a good question. Why would the media lie about crimes? Well, it is an excellent way to scare people. For example, the news has been saying that COVID-19 has had a major cause in the increase in violent crime. However, if we look at the data, that is not necessarily true. We know that as temperatures naturally rise in summer, so does tempers. In addition to this, there is racial tensions that have been flaring for decades. Riots have increased, gun violence increased, and violent crime. Although places like Chicago have strict gun laws, the locals often call it “Chiraq” because of the gunshots they hear all the time. This isn’t anything new, and the strict gun laws often cause ghost guns and convicted felons a chance to acquire them. The media plays a huge role as to what we interpret as “good” and “bad.” However, I do believe it also falls on the American people to properly do their research, and it is very easy to google something and come up with false information. So, for many Americans they are not well informed and get false information from faulty sources.
The crime rate is falling in the United States and I believe that it is because of the lack of the crimes reported. There are many gang related activities and drug activities that are kept on the low and are not reported through anything, this is because they are taken care of within their group. I think we need to cut down on the number of gangs and drug activities in order to really make the crime rate fall. Criminals also have a way to figure out how to commit their crimes without being caught, they can maneuver their way around the law. Lastly, people these days do not trust law enforcers. The media and news give out information on them that is not necessarily good giving a lack of trust to them. People do not call the police or interact with the law because they are scared of what consequences they might face if they were trying to defend themselves. I think that their are many reasons why the crime rate is falling but it isn’t actually falling. We have to begin reporting a lot more crimes in order to see the real number of crimes and see if it is decreasing or not.
Thank you for sharing your belief/opinion that the crime rate is not really falling, even though most expert researchers, who conduct funded research to pursue an answer to this question do not support this view. You should consider writing your final paper on this topic. That would give you an opportunity to read the actual research (which reflects many differently articulated views by the way) to inform your opinions, so they are not based on mere feelings alone. I’d be happy to help you with that.
According to the Cambridge dictionary, the crime rate is the number of crimes committed during a period of time in a particular place. The post is mainly comparing the increase/decrease in the crime rate from time-to-time. The crime rate primarily depends on the locality where people live. Generally, as we see in our daily news and social media, crimes occur in older and smaller localities. Crimes occur in such areas because there is not much activity or growth, which means people residing in that specific area are disabled, old, or unable to progress in their careers. In my view and as said in the post, the crime rate keeps reducing as time passes on. It happens as the security systems are enhanced, and the government takes the initiative to spend more money on security than other things. But, what we see in the news media and social media is quite different than what the statistics say. We know a lot of crime is shown in the news every day, and reporters talk about the increase in crime rate and the remedies to reduce it. Most of the time, news channels are politically biased and tend to show news that catches viewers’ attention. That is the main reason why we, the general public, think that the crime rate is going higher every day.
The crime rate is falling in the US and although it sounds good it is actually bad because I believe a lot of crimes are falling under the radar or are not being detected . A lot of people may believe crime is still prevalent due to their own personal experiences. The dark figure of crime plays a major role in this because , the dark figure of crime is basically the amount of crime that goes unreported. This plays a big role because there are numerous unknown victims of crime that is not being counted and therefore giving the misconception that crime is low . I learned that the crime rate in my area has significantly decreased over time .
The dark figure of crime is crimes that have not been reported for whatever reason. The reason why this is important is because it could influence the measurement of crime meaning that not all crimes have been measured because there have been crimes that the studies do not know about. This is also important because this means that there are crimes that people are too afraid to report on for certain reasons and there are probable crimes criminals are getting away with. The public could believe that crime is getting worse because of the news and other media who exaggerate crimes that are happening just to get more views. If the news and other media can make the public believe there is so much crime going on, they make the public concerned and more of the public will watch or view the news or other media. If there is some form of media telling the public what to believe some of the public will believe it.
I think that the reason why the public perceives the crime rate in the U.S. to be much higher than it actually is is because of the way we get our news and how news outlets capitalize off of big stories that bring in more views, likes, clicks, etc. First off, news outlets rarely share the good in the world unless it is exceedingly good and the company knows that the story will bring in a large audience. They’re much more likely to share news about the crimes going on and dramatizing or angling the story in a certain way that will attract more people. When we’re constantly bombarded with news about crime, whether the crime be big or small, or if a crime was even committed (because we all know news outlets are just as guilty of using click-bait titles as any other media source), it warps our perception of what’s going on in the world when it isn’t being balanced out with the good. This also isn’t aided by the fact that rather than just getting our news from the newspaper or TV like many people used to, the amount of people using social media and the internet is growing exponentially everyday, so news sources have taken to publishing their stories on there as well and getting the attention of a wider audience. This means more people are talking and posting about it, and everyone wants to share their own opinion. This leads to small stories often snowballing into much bigger ones depending on the amount of people who are interested, and the talk about crime becomes even more widespread.
There are many reasons that even though the crime rate is falling that people still believe it is increasing. I think the main reason that a lot of people think that crime is increasing is due to the media. All news stations seem to show are the amount of crimes that people commit and are always looking inside courtrooms at their hearings. If the news aired other things, then crime for most of its allotted time then I think the affect would be different on how perceive crime rate. There are certain areas that are seeing an increase in crime rate and the people that live and or around those areas would be of the opinion that the rate of crime is rising everywhere but in reality it is just in their area. Overall crime rate is going down and I believe that if the news stopped airing entire shows on crime and showing courtrooms and if people in areas saw the big picture I think their views would change on how the crime rate is increasing to them believing it is decreasing.
I believe the public tends to believe crime is becoming more prevalent, (even though statistics show that it is falling everywhere), because they are actually witnessing it on their own. Not everything seen or heard is reported. If a community is used to seeing criminal behavior, they are probably more likely to just “mind their business”. Especially if people think there will be consequences and repercussions for reporting the crime. This point connects to something called “Dark Figure of Crime”. The “dark figure of crime” are crimes known to exist due to the reporting of observers and/or victims. They are usually not reported or recorded by law enforcements agencies. The dark figure of crime is important because crimes go unreported which makes it difficult to collect data for crime statistics.
The crime rate in the US is falling down according to statics. Most people would go yes that is awesome. However is it a good thing or is dark figure of crime coming more popular? The dark figure of crime is the stuff that is not reported or people that just do not feel like having to deal with the process of the justice system. It is very long and tedious and everyone will obtain a headache. If you ask the people who do not look at statistics and just watch the media then you would think the crime rate is out of the roof. The media has one job and it is to reel in the people, by doing that they try to give out bad but interesting information. Mckeesport PA crime rate is pretty bad 2125 for every 100000 people. It was ranked one of the most dangerous cities in the PA. Does no surprise me at all.
I believe that the outlet of information that is being dispersed out to everyone in the country is the main cause for people to believe the crime rate is climbing. By that I mean things like CNN, NBC, and FOX are telling the country what they know will give their stations ratings and not the true statistics of the crime rate. These news stations are the main problem when it comes to the truth because they only tell a portion of the whole truth and will constantly show similar events over and over again to keep the population of the country focused on one thing. Take the officer shootings that seem to be happening every other day, the country is so focused on these shooting making Americans believe the crime rate is on the rise that they can’t see the real numbers on how it is declining. The public see what the news stations want us to see and just feed off that so if it means saying that police violence is out of control then everyone will believe that. Unfortunately, this country seems to be run by what is in the news such as the shootings or the pandemic that has been the spotlight since February and there hasn’t been anything else in the news really. If the news didn’t talk about violence in today’s society for two months then the public would believe it is declining but because that can’t happen all that can be done is research the statistics yourself and become self-aware of the truth.
Being socially constructed with good sports means you’re less likely to do crime as none of your friends would either.
Being socially constructed with bad sports however you’re more likely to as they want to as-well.
This comment makes no sense and it falls far short of what is expected for credit on this assignment. Read the comments posted here from your classmates and do better next time. Also, please review the assignment as well as grading guidelines (i.e. word count expectations) posted in the syllabus.
I also don’t know what you mean by “being socially constructed with sports.” Do you?
In the United States, we see that the crime rate has declined over the years. We can see that by studying annual reports and surveys created by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. But, the public tends to believe crime is becoming more prevalent, even though statistics show that it is falling. I think the public perception of crime is based on what they see and/or read from the media outlets. Most of the time, news stations are showing violent crimes and that is all the public is seeing. Everyday the public is seeing a new murder being commited, a new robbery taking place, they are not seeing the world in a whole picture. The public might not even know about the sources for crime reporting. Leading them to have a wrong perception about crime in the United States. The “dark figure of crime” are the crimes that are not reported and/or recorded. This calls into question the accuracy of the reports. Even though crime is on the downfall, the actual numbers might be different since some people do not report if they have become a victim of a crime for numerous reasons. When I looked at my local crime rate in Elizabeth, Pa, I was not surprised. I looked at the UCR from 2016 and it showed violent crime had decreased over the years. I was not surprised because I do not hear or see the violent crimes taking place in Elizabeth.
The crime rate in America is declining due to the dark figure of crime. The dark figure of crime are crimes that exist due to the reporting by people, but they are not reported by law enforcement. Due to a lack of reporting by the law enforcement, crime theoretically seems to be going down. Even though crime might be going down due to other factors, it is still interesting to look at how there are crimes just not being reported. This dark figure of crime is important because it is important to know when looking at statistics that there it may not be completely accurate. The numbers in certain areas of crime might be higher than what the law officials may be putting out. Even though the crime rate is declining, the public still believes that crime is becoming more prevalent. This I think has to do with the media because the media, crime shows, etc. make crimes like murder more prevalent than it actually is. Most television shows about crime usually have to do with major crimes and not so much of the lesser crimes. This has to do with wanting to capture the audience’s attention and in return, people’s perception of crime is that crime is more prevalent than it actually is. Crime in my area is relatively low but looking at a neighboring city to me, there are extremely high crime rates. I do believe in that city that crime has been going down, but it is still prevalent in that city.
There is a VERY extensive literature on the fluctuating crime rate – not one of the experts who study and publish on this subject have ever cited the simple fact of unreported crime as the reason that the crime rate is going down.
Crime is something that is everywhere, and it is something that affects everybody. So that makes me wonder if there was a way to get a better understanding of crime, and what it is that would help the crime rate decrease. Crime is socially constructed by the people deciding what is and what is not a crime. For example in some state’s cannabis is legal and not considered a drug, but in other states it is still considered an illegal drug that will cause harm to people. It is also said that the crime rate has been on the decline since the 1990s. I believe that the crime rate has been falling because most of the people who witness that crime don’t believe that law enforcement will take action to stop the crimes from happening, or they are scared of law enforcement and think something will happen to them if they decide to tell. The dark figure of the crime rate is the massive number of crimes not reported to criminal justice agencies. This is important because then the data that the criminal justice agencies collected won’t be correct most of the time because crimes are being committed without law enforcement knowing. Now this goes back to the dark figure of the crime rate that the crime rate is going down. Because people are not reporting the crimes out of fear, or they have no belief in our justice system. So I learned that crime is everywhere, and we can’t accurately measure the percentages of crime done in the states.
It is interesting to witness citizens report a higher crime level in their areas compared to previous years when it isn’t necessarily true. I believe the reason they say that is because we hav more ways to access information than just the TV now. That benefits the system two ways: People can report and publicize crimes and injustices themselves via the internet, and because of that same exposure, we are hearing about a new crime every day. That does not mean crime has increased, we are just more aware of it.
FYI, this post falls short of the 150 word count minimum specified in the syllabus. Please review the syllabus.
Have you ever had your cell phone stolen? I have and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, so I was not going to report it. With that being said, I believe unreported crimes are one reason crime stats looks like they are falling. The public does not believe these statistics. Why? They witness or have the crimes committed against them and due to a lack in faith in the police or the area in question citizens do not report crime. They tend to believe that nothing will come of it except more headaches. This all sort of falls in line with the “dark figure of crime” which is a term used by crime experts and sociologists to illustrate the number of committed crimes that are never reported or discovered. This in turn puts doubt around the effectiveness and efficiency of official crime data. In my local area the data shows property crime as the major issue but I just moved here and can’t comment on anything I myself have witnessed yet, it does seem calmer then Philadelphia here.
Crime in my area is generally high. I do know that crime on average has gone down, and I hope it will continue to go down. While I see more stories about crime every day, I tend to follow the statistics more because they are at least reported numbers. My perceptions of crime align with my experience and the reported numbers.
1. crime is socially constructed from the people we make friends with and hang out with. If the people you hang around are not morally good people then you will tend to do more illegal things
2. typically the main source of crime reports are from the Uniform crime reports or UCR, The Nation Crime Victimizatoin Survey or the NCVS, and the National Incident Based Reporting System or NIBRS.
3. Crime is all relative to where you live if you live somewhere like Compton than crime goes up dramatically so it could be because certain areas are reducing in crime which make the whole average drop
4. the Dark Figure is all the crimes not reported or discovered. it is important to know this figure as it will show how well our enforcement is doing
Crime is socially constructed because it’s the result of action made by human, which is assigned by human beings in social interactions. Everyone views crime differently, and the views is dependent on our definition.
The major source of crime statistics is the report from FBI. Except that, there are also Uniform Crime Reports, The National Incident-Based Reporting System, National Crime Victimization Survey, they are all good sources. A big reason that crime rate in the U.S. is falling is because that many people does not report crime. Maybe because they do not trust the police or other reasons. Unreported crime are increasing, so that the crime rate is falling.
The dark figure of crime are crimes that were not reported by law enforcement, which made the public question about the accuracy of those statistics.
Before, I sincerely thought that we had a crime problem in our country. I feel like I could not go a day without seeing a post on a social media platform or hearing about some new, elaborate crime. I also read about how jails were over-populated, which also made me think that we had a crime issue. After learning more and reading in this class, crime is much lower than it has ever been, and the huge drop in the statistics proves it. I think that this problem is crimes such as murders and blue-collar crimes are shown on tv more than any other crimes, and people like to watch and read about them so it seems like they are always occurring. While I already knew that crime was lower than what it seems on a national level, what I never thought about was the crime that goes on locally. If someone were to ask me about the crime in my area, I would say that it was up, considering I always see police officers and state troopers hanging around in the area and that was rarely the case before.
The social construct of crime is hard to define because it is different for each people. In today’s society, each person will get their news from various sources. People that want to see the world as a dangerous place will look for news about crime, and this will place them into a filter bubble where their social media will lead all their stories with that of crime. If a person always sees crime stories, they will believe that crime rates are rising. If a person wants to get real stats of crime they need to look at the major sources for crime statistics, the annual report form the FBI is a good start, looking up the Uniform Crime Reports (USR), The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and the Supplementary Homicide Reports are all good sources. While the crime rate in the U.S is falling, it is not all good news. A big reason for the lower crime rates is that people are not reporting crimes, mostly because of the wariness people have with the police. Criminals are also getting cleverer and taking less risk in their crimes. The dark figure of crime is crime that is known to happen but is not reported on for the reasons above, and this makes people question the official sources that report crimes.
My own “public perceptions” of what crime has been have been similar to the groups in the Pew report that polled lower for perceived crime in their local area but higher when asked about perceived crime rate nationally. I believed that crime was growing every year in the country, but if asked about it in my neighborhood I would say it has remained low. I think this perception has, in large part, been created by the easy access to information in the 21st century. Every day you can wake up and see a new crime wave that occurred, and that starts to create the illusion that crime is running rampant.
The new information I have just read definitely challenges my point of view that crime has been increasing. Two highly regarded crime statistic institutions have both found very similar data that point to the same outcome. Fewer crimes are occurring over the last roughly 25 years of reported data. Violent, and non-violent alike are seeing huge percentage drops. Which is very reassuring, but concerning that many Americans are still under the impression crime is rising.
The data presented sharply contradicts my own perception, and now I have a new found perception of crime in this country currently.
“the dark figure” is pretty much exactly how it sounds. It’s refers to the amount of crimes that are known to exist due to the reporting of observers and/or victims, but they tend not to be reported or recorded by law enforcement agencies; they include criminal incidents/ occurrences that meet the definition of a record-able crime, but they effectively elude capture by sources of official statistics. Crimes go unreported for a bunch of different reasons. People are afraid to report crimes or just afraid of the police in general. A lot of the time, crimes aren’t reported because of the belief that the police can’t help or that it’s just a personal matter. I can see a lot of domestic violence goes unreported because the victim doesn’t want their spouse to go to jail.
The dark figure is important because it calls into question the accuracy of official sources of crime statistics. Combine this with the fact that public perceptions about crime in the U.S. often don’t align with the data and it makes the accuracy of official sources of crime statistics that much more questionable.
The “dark figure of crime” is fairly easy to understand. Dark figure of crime is an umbrella word for all of the crimes that have been committed but have not been reported by law enforcement. With dark figure crimes, there could have been witnesses and victims who are the ones who saw the crime or were involved and that is the only way of knowing that the crime exists. This is important to know because the crimes that are accounted for within the crime rates are only the ones that were reported and recorded by law enforcement agencies. That means that all of the dark figure of crime is not being accounted for and the crime rates should be higher than they are. Crimes may not be reported due to being scared to report it, feeling as though the police wouldn’t help, or people are not sure whether to report something or not.
The social construction of crime itself is not person to person, but rather the majority is talked about with in social media, newspaper, and the news on TV. The way all of the crime information gets to the news is through the statistical analysis collected. There are basically two main ways to do that an one is the annual report by the FBI. Very self explanatory but the FBI just reports it major crimes of wrongdoing and it is recorded. The second way is the annual survey which is collected by surveying 90,000 households and asking anyone over the age of 12 if they have been a victim to any crime whether it was reported or not. And through both of these ways crime statistics is collected. There has been a decline in crime rate in some major places recently and studies show that we can not put our finger on why it has declined. I personally believe that crime is declining from the fear of news and social media. I actually think some police officers do not want to involve themselves in high crime areas because of how the media can portray an incident in a totally different way. And of course the other reason I believe is the dark figure of crime. This is when crime is reported and is not recorded by the FBI. This could play a roll as to why it says crime as went down.
Crime is an action that dishonors a state or country and is able to be punished by the law. Although crime can be defined in many ways the most common would be that it is punishable. Everyone is punished in some way for a crime they might have committed. The list of acts considered to be crimes is constantly changing. Crimes may be classified in various ways.They sometimes are grouped according to the seriousness of the offense, according to the motives of the offenders. Some crimes may include economic crimes, political crimes and white-collar crime. Crimes are often divided between acts that most people would consider evil and acts that lawmakers decide should be regulated in the interest of the community.
Crime is socially constructed by who we hang around and our individual thoughts and opinions. One crime might not seem so bad by one person but it can be seen as horrible to another. People also see it differently by how it’s ported on the tv or internet. The major sources of crime statistics can be the UCR or the NCVS. NIBRS also helps with crime statistics but we cant be sure because of the number of unreported crimes.
Some potential reasons the U.S. crime rate is falling is crimes aren’t being reported be cause the distrust in law enforcers, law enforcers are cracking down on crimes and dedicating more time to investigate. Another reason crime rates are falling can be criminals are getting smarter and being more careful with what they do.
The “dark figure of crime” is crimes that aren’t reported and it’s important because the crimes that aren’t reported can effect us in different ways for the worse. It also effects crime statistics. These crimes aren’t reported because either the witness/ victim doesn’t trust the police, they don’t feel its necessary to call the police, or they are scared of what will happen or what others will think.
“Crime” so to speak is merely the act of when an individual or individuals go against the social norms of society and break that societies laws and rules. When discussing crime rate, it is nearly impossible to collect all crimes committed due to the fact that most crimes are behind closed doors also known as the dark figure of crime. Yes, crime rates are decreasing but we still don’t really understand why and it has been concluded that more incarceration time had very little effect on the declining rate. Crime on its own will never go away because as long as there are laws to break, someone is going to break them. However, crime can defined differently around the world with different cultures allowing certain acts to be legal or illegal. For example, some counties have laws set in place for the right to own a firearm or not to own one and then there’s other countries like the US were firearm laws are still present but a lot less strict when it comes to the type of firearm you can legally purchase and posses. When it comes to law enforcement trying to decrease the crime rate even further, many of them will continue to do their jobs and hopefully we will see future crime reduction in the years to come.
Crime is determined by what our society says. If we say it is right then we will see nothing wrong with it but if it is wrong we will all agree that it is wrong. Some people do disagree with this and this is what leads to protests and even more crimes whether is is fights, riots, and even people getting killed. I think television is what influences us the most. We see all of these crimes being reported on the news as well as shows such as law and order and bones and so on. What we think is wrong basically is what others think is wrong. I feel in our society if we do not agree with what others say we get judged or attacked just for having an opinion. The dark figure of crime are the crimes that go unreported. This is important because there are thousands of crimes that are not being reported when they should be. This leads to why some people may not report crimes. Some of the reasons could be they are too afraid to report it or even embarrassed. If you watch law and order some people do not report rape because they are embarrassed and may even think that it is their fault. Some there reasons could be they feel that people will make fun of them or as we say these days “snitch.” Which is a stupid term because doing the right thing is not snitching. If crimes are not reported harmful people will just be wandering the streets committing more crimes.
Crime is socially manufactured in light of the fact that people have chosen what is legitimate and prohibited, what things you may or may not be able to and what is a wrongdoing or not. Clearly, there are a few things that ought to be pondered/trusted a wrongdoing and unlawful, for example, murder or taking something since it is barbarous and exploitative and can amazingly influence somebody. There are different laws however those individuals have made that may not appear as imperative, for example, maryjane or sedate laws and speed limits. Laws were made to keep request and peace in (a group of individuals/all great individuals on the planet).
The real wellsprings of wrongdoing measurements are the Uniform Crime Reports, Additional/helping Murder Reports, National Event-Based Reporting System, Hate Crime Statistics, National Crime (harming or faulting somebody) Survey, and Law Enforcement Killed and Attacked Statistics. The majority of the sources have their advantages, yet they additionally have blemishes that could prompt skewed or not totally (near reality or genuine number) or full information.
Crime rates have been falling since the mid 1990’s. While there’s plenty of measurements that show wrongdoing rates have fallen, no one truly knows why or knows how to clear the drop in wrongdoing. There are clarifications (of why things work or happen the way they do, for example, the (procedure of individuals making, offering, and purchasing things) or more crooks as of now being placed in prison yet the issue with those clarifications (of why things work or happen the way they do) is the (procedure of individuals making, offering, and purchasing things) (not very far in the past) has been (bringing down in number/deteriorating) and expresses that have brought down their imprisoning rates have still observed the decrease in wrongdoing.
The dark figure of crimes alludes to the quantity of unreported or unfamiliar violations. This again demonstrates a portion of the insights for violations may not be (near reality or genuine number) in light of the fact that numerous Crimes go gone and some are simply investigated and disregarded.
Crime is “socially constructed” because it is practically nonexistent without having the necessary data and record-keeping to follow certain crimes. Crimes are also subject to social change and can develop and change over time. We as a society view crimes as something that is criminal in nature, but it is within our subjectivity to define what is a crime and what is not a crime. For example, we as a society agree that murder is a crime and criminal in nature, but the smoking of marijuana is not viewed to be criminal in nature by some people in society, but is still considered by law to be a crime in most states. The overall crime rate and the reporting of crime has decreased over the past few years. Some of the major sources of crime statistics and crime reporting are the UCR (Uniform Crime Reports), NIBRS, (National Incident-Based Reporting System), and NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey). The potential reasons that explain the falling rate of crime in the United States is not exactly clear, but an increase of the number of people that are in our jails and prisons along with unreported crimes may have led to what seems to be a decrease in the overall crime rate. The “dark figure of crime” is crime that goes unreported, and it is important because it exists and still occurs while going unreported. The “dark figure of crime” can skew the record keeping and statistics of crime. This may also go to show that people are more uncomfortable reporting crimes or confronting the police nowadays than in years past.
How does one measure crime? Crime rate comes from the amount of crimes being committed in a population in a year. This amount can fluctuate as time goes. Research is still being done on why exactly this amount fluctuates and is currently falling.
Why does the crime rate differ upon nation, year, and/or population? Whether an act is a crime or not depends on the response by society. Many things are made a crime because it is seen as immoral by a population. Society plays a huge role on the crime rate because society itself decides on whether or not many actions are crimes. This is what makes crimes known as the phrase “socially constructed.”
Sources like Uniform Crime Reports, Supplementary Homicide Reports, The National Incident-Based Reporting System, and the National Crime Victimization Survey are where individuals can view crime statistics.
The “dark figure of crime” are crimes that were never reported by law enforcement agencies. This lack of crimes being reported makes the accuracy of crime statistics be put into question and this is why this is very important.
Crime is an act deemed morally/ethically wrong that many deviants cant keep themselves away from. Some people feel as if some laws shouldn’t be in effect, while others pair opposite opinion. This shows the gap in or ethical and moral opinions, and is the reason we see so much crime. What many may view as horrible, some may see on the daily and have no effect on themselves. Crime is everywhere around the world, and shows itself in many different ways.
Crime can be considered as a socially constructed due to the fact that everyone views crimes differently. In today’s society people across the world have different beliefs and morals that lead them to do a certain crime. What someone may believe is a crime someone else may think is perfectly fine. however there are sometimes boundaries with crime such as murder, robbery etc. these in most peoples eyes are a crime. On the other hand, something like smoking marijuana may be illegal however its not a serious crime. in today’s statistics a lot of the stats may be from a crime that really isn’t that serious but due to the fact that its a crime, the statistics will show that it is indeed a crime. This leads for semi false statistics just because people have different morals than others and view whats illegal or legal from different view points.
Crime is Socially constructed because depending on the society in which the crime was committed it might be viewed as less serious. For instance, in the suburbs a child stealing a bag of M&M’s might be viewed as socially unacceptable while in the inner city this is more of an everyday occurrence.
As stated in the article the major sources for reporting these crime statistics are as follows:
1.Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) – Part I and Part II Offenses
2.Supplementary Homicide Reports
3.The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
4.National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)
One of the reason of the falling rate in crime is that crimes are not being reported. Society is less trusting of the police in this generation. Which is why I believe that the dark figure of crime is at a much higher rate then in the past. The dark figure of crime are all the left unreported crimes. It is important because it tells us how accurate our statistics actually are.
1.Crime is socially constructed by the people you spend your time with. The type of people you associate yourself with good or bad is the type of person you will become. Crime is socially constructed by the way you and others act and do things.
2. Major sources of crime statistics come from many different things. But mainly two of the places statistics of this topic come from the UCR (Uniform Crime Reports) and also the National Crime VIctimization Survey. Police stations and many different places get all of their statistics based off of these things. Also the annual crime report from the FBI.
3. Part of the crime rates going down is how ontop of things the reports are getting. How ontop of all of the crimes the FBI are and how seriously they are taking things. They are cracking down on the documentation of crimes so they know what is going on in the world around them. The documentation of these crimes have caused them to decrease because they can be eaiser to predict.
4. Dark figure crime is the amount of unreported or undiscovered crime. The Dark figure of crime is imortant because it effects us in different ways. It is all of the crime in the world that is not getting solved and still going on every day. It is crime that needs to start being investigated and solved and payed attention to. The more crime that is not being solved or discovered will only effect us negatively and the community that we live in will suffer.
Crime is “socially constructed” due to the fact that, we, as humans have collectively deemed what should and shouldn’t be defined as crime. Throughout history there have been obvious crimes and then ones that are subject to more debate. However the fact that society deliberates and often time reverses or re-examines crimes and consequences for those actions shows that the idea of crime has been developed, influenced, and instituted by society itself, therefore making it a construct of society.
Many major sources of crime include, Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), Supplementery Homicide Reports, The National Incident-Based Reporting System, and the National Crime Victimization Survey. All of these statistic outlets report crimes and their natures to researchers and those who are looking for information on the matters.
Crime Rate is currently falling and has been for quite some time, however, not much evidence or facts are available to answer the question of, why this is happening. Some reasons as to why people believe crime rate is falling are not hard fact, but may account for some of the explanation. One theory is that the mass amount of Incarceration and the stiffened penalties for repeat offenders is thought to explain why crime is falling. Although these may seem like valid reasons as to why the crime is falling, there is no significant research data that shows the mass incarceration of people in our justice system plays a major impact or why crime is falling. Stiffened penalties also may play a huge role on former or current felons in their thought processes on wether or not to commit more crime or not, however there is also not much evidence to support this as well. Unreported, also known as Dark Figure of Crime, may be a key factor in why and how the crime rate is falling.
The Dark Figure of Crime refers to crimes that are witnessed and reported by witnesses and victims, but are not reported by law enforcement and other statistical agencies. These are actions that take place and meet all criteria to be considered crime that is recordable, but for whatever reason are not recorded by official statistics. The Dark Figure of Crime is very important because it brings to light the argument of the legitimacy and accuracy of criminal statistics and the sources from which they come.
Crime is socially constructed depending on how people view crime. For example, criminal behavior in one country or society, may only be viewed as an honorable act in a diverse society. Also the legal status of a behavior, criminal or not, highly depends on how society responds to the actions. The major sources of crime statistics include Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), Supplementary Homicide Reports, The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), and National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). These elements are all essential factors in constructing crime. According to these sources, but not limited to, the crime rate is reported as “falling” in the United States. Whether it be fear of contacting the police, fear This may be due to the criminal iceberg. This means that most crimes are hidden from the police and therefore the rest of society. This is also known as the dark figure of crime. This concept is important because they are crimes that are not recorded by law enforcement, although they are known to exist. In result of these crimes not being reported or recorded, the accuracy of the crime statistics may be skewed.
Crime has many different definitions depending on who is being asked. Due to a number of factors that add up to one’s life experience, no two people have the exact same definition of what crime truly is. Much of what we assume crime to be has to do with the crime rate and how individuals interpret it. Different indexes, such as the Uniform Crime Report and National Crime Victimization Surveys, are produced in an attempt to accurately paint a picture of crime in the country. From those results, we can understand the nation’s crime rate and crime in general. The crime rate is not completely reliable, however, due to circumstances like incarceration and the lack of reporting crimes. Because the idea of crime and what it means is always changing, many may decide not to report crimes committed against them due to a number of reasons, such as shame or guilt. Our legal system is also always changing, so this also affects how crime is viewed in our world. Statistics are not the most reliable source of information on crime and the crime rate, and our main ideas typically stem from what we are exposed to by the media and our own lives.
Crime is socially constructed by what we are surrounded with in our daily lives. Many people around the world have different believes on what is a crime and what is not. We are taught to believe through tv shows, video games, and social media what we should consider a crime. Although some may not experience crime firsthand, when we hear the word “crime” a certain image pops into our head with the actions that we consider a crime.
There are four major sources of that we rely on for criminal statistics. They are Uniform Crime reports, Supplementary Homicide reports, the National Incident- based reporting system, and the National Crime victimization Survey.
Although there are no clear reason why crime rate is falling, researchers believe it is due to the increase in incarceration or a decrease in people reporting crimes.
The dark figure refers to all crimes that are not reported to police, but have happened based on witnesses that saw the crime. The dark figure is important because without the acknowledgment of the crime from the victim, police can’t do anything about it. This also leads to a decrease in crime rates when in reality it is much higher because of unreported incidents.
Crime is socially constructed due to the fact that a behavior becomes a crime based on the social response the action is responded with to. For instance, in some areas of the world an action would be considered a crime however in another part could be considered honorable. On top of that, whether the action is defined as a law or not also comes into context.
There are primarily two measurements of the nations crime rate. One of which is a report from the FBI which is done yearly focusing on only what would be considered serious crimes. The other measurement is a survey held by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. They survey asks households whether or not they were the victims of a crime in the past 6 months regardless of if they contacted authorities or not.
The crime rate has been on a decline. Fingers point to a simple reason being the increase of incarceration however this is not the case. The reason behind declining crime rate is complex and is argued over by experts. Even after intense studying and research experts say “We do not know with precision what caused the crime decline, but the growth in incarceration played only a minor role, and now has a negligible impact.” Further ensuing that incarceration is not the answer.
There is a “dark figure” of crime which is put simply a failure to report a crime to authorities or reporting in general for any sort of reason. Which causes a inaccuracy of official sources of crime statistics.
Crime is socially constructed because humans have decided what is legal and illegal, what things you can and can’t do and what is a crime or not. Obviously, there are some things that should be considered a crime and illegal such as murder or stealing something because it is morally wrong and can drastically affect someone. There are other laws though that people have created that may not seem as important such as marijuana or drug laws and speed limits. Laws were created to keep order and peace in society.
The major sources of crime statistics are the Uniform Crime Reports, Supplementary Homicide Reports, National Incident-Based Reporting System, Hate Crime Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, and Law Enforcement Killed and Assaulted Statistics. All of the sources have their benefits, but they also have flaws that could lead to skewed or not completely accurate or full data.
Crime rates having been falling since the mid 1990’s. While there’s a lot of statistics that show crime rates have fallen, nobody really knows why or knows how to explain the drop in crime. There are theories such as the economy or more criminals already being incarcerated but the problem with those theories is the economy recently has been declining and states that have lowered their incarceration rates have still seen the decline in crime.
The dark figure of crime refers to the number of unreported or undiscovered crimes. This again shows that some of the statistics for crimes may not be very accurate because many crimes go unaccounted for and some are just looked over and ignored.
Crime is a “social construct”, meaning we as a society decide the degree of what is criminal. Something that might be inherently evil in one society, may be highly acclaimed in another. One group’s outlook on crime can entirely differ from your own. Crime is best measured by those exposed to it. A majority of crime statistics are reported by an eye witness. Sources such as the Uniform Crime Report, Supplementary Homicide Reports, National Incident-Based Reports, and the National Crime Victimization Survey are used to more accurately measure the frequency of crime. The reason behind a decreasing crime rate is still undetermined. One potential influence is the “dark figure” of crime. This is a term given to unreported/ undocumented crime. This crime is still prominent but for one reason or another is not being recorded by law enforcement. Crime may go unreported due to a fear or shame from the victim. This idea is an important one because it effects the accuracy of the crime rate.
Crime is only based upon societal perception. Something is only a crime if society says it is, thereby being “socially constructed.”
Most crime statistics come from Uniform Crime Reports, Supplementary Homicide Reports, The National Incident-Based Reporting System, and The National Crime Victimization Survey.
The crime rate in the US could be falling because society’s view on what a crime is and what should be punished is changing. Many states are changing their rules on how much of a drug is legal to have on you, or what cops are allowed to do. Many cops, recently, are afraid to apprehend someone who isn’t doing serious harm because of the backlash by the media that may ensue.
The “dark figure of crime” is all the crime that goes on that isn’t reported to the authorities. It’s important because this data could be keeping citizens safer, but one can’t help when they don’t know what’s wrong.
In our society today, many crimes are socially constructed by what we believe is right and wrong. In our society, we create certain beliefs and tend to disregard any other opinions towards the topic, while in another society they may have a completely opposing opinion. By crimes becoming social constructed means that whether the behavior is legally a crime or not, the way our society responds has a huge role in the acceptance of the behavior.
The dark figures of crime create a problem when trying to accurately represent crime statistics. Many victims of crimes may be too scared to report a crime or may believe that the act was not a big deal depending on how their society views it. How crime in socially constructed plays a role in the dark figures because if the victim’s society does not necessarily view the behavior as a crime then they will feel there is no reason to report it. Also, victims may not feel safe reporting a crime that happened or may not even want to anyone about it. As a society, we need to make safer environments where victims of crime will feel open to talk about their situations.
Crime is socially constructed by the meaning of acts, behaviors and events through social interaction. Crime is determined and organized by social change. Without
social interaction and behaviors by people there would be no true definition of crime.
The major sources of crime statistics that help contribute towards constructing crime include: 1. Uniform Crime reports part 1 and 2 offenses. 2. Supplementary homicide reports. 3. The national incident- based reporting system. 4. National Crime victimization survey.
The economic and criminal justice researchers after many months of testing have not come to a clear conclusion as to why the crime rate has fallen in the United States. However, some potential reasons as to why the crime rate has fallen include, increased incarceration which only played a minor role.
Dark figure crime- Refers to a term that means crimes that are not reported. The reason why this term is so important is because when these crimes do not end up being reported this really calls into question the accuracy of official sources of criminal statistics.
Everyday, we hear talk about crime through television, news, and social media. However, people constantly talk between one another about what is occurring throughout the world and compare socially. When comparing the different types of crimes, there are many different social views and things that are considered normal for their culture. There are many different sources that crime statistics can come from. Two major sources to measure crime rates are from an annual report by the FBI and an annual survey about whether or not people were the victims of crime within the past six months. Although, victims and societies play a huge role in keeping tack of the statistics of crime. Fortunately, the crime rate is falling and unlike most thoughts, increased incarceration is not necessarily the answer. The true reason is controversial among many experts. They are unable to pick one reason, but the FBI thinks that it may have something to do with the population in the area and economic conditions. The Dark Figure of Crime is also a possibility because it refers to the crimes that are known to exist, but are only reported by observers or the victims and are not recorded by law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, our world has scared individuals to not want to report their crimes. It has not only made it a dangerous society, but gives crime statistics that are unreliable.
Crime is socially constructed in a way that we see it in our daily lives. Maybe not with our own eyes but TV shows and news are always talking about crime in some way. If you turn on any news channel during the day, you will most likely see a barrage of people committing crimes especially in local news. This creates the feeling with people that crime is a common daily occurrence and maybe even increasing from year to year. Along with seeing crime in the news, you can see it all over social media. With these posts, they are often skewed or have a certain viewpoint of it. This affects peoples opinions about the area where the crime happened and who lives there. While the people who are living there might not be what the media portrays them as and are living their lives to the best, even with their circumstances. Another topic is the dark figure of crime. These are crimes that exist because the victims or witnesses have reported them, but not to law enforcement, so they don’t count towards official statistics. This means that about half or a little less of violent crimes are actually reported to police and therefore not known to society. People don’t report crimes always, maybe because of something personal or they might just think that the police can not help. This causes one to ask how valid are the crime statistics that show crime declining if they don’t have all the data. This dark figure of crime makes it hard to get correct information about crime and maybe there needs to be a better way to report crime and attain statistics of crime.
Crime, at its simplest definition, is simply the breaking of the law. Determining what is considered against the law is socially constructed in that it changes from state to state and country to country, and is constantly evolving over time. While some people may believe that certain actions are morally wrong (as in the case of mala in se crimes), those actions can only be considered criminal once there is a law prohibiting or regulating that activity. As a result, based on a wide range of possible motivations like popular opinion, ignorance, or an interest in public safety, lawmakers seek to criminalize and penalize specific behaviors by creating laws that prohibit them. Since crime in socially constructed, what may have been considered deviant or illegal years ago may be allowed or even embraced and encouraged today, based on changing opinions, new information, and shifts in popular opinion.
The two primary sources for crime statistics are the FBI’s annual report and a survey done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The FBI report examines the crime rate on a national level and is based on crimes that have been reported to the police. In contrast, The Bureau of Justice Statistics relies on a survey to ascertain whether the participants have been the victims of a crime. Although they differ in their methods of gathering information, both sources agree that the crime rate has been falling steadily.
The “dark figure of crime” is easily seen in the distinctions between the two methods of gathering data exercised by the FBI and BJS. While the FBI report measures reported crime, the BJS report asks respondent’s if they have experienced a crime and whether or not they reported it to the police. The fact that only half of the crimes reported in the survey were indicated as having been reported to the authorities illustrates that there is crime occurring that is not being prosecuted or measured in crime statistic reports. Unless the perpetrator is caught, the only way the crime can be listed is if the victim reports it. Whether the crime goes unreported because the victim is distrustful of police or not convinced that the authorities can do anything to help, those instances of illegal behavior that are never seen or heard of are imperative to understanding crime rates and how they fluctuate.
Crime is “socially structured” because the way society sees crime. Each group of people can perceive crime differently. The way people are raised, or their backgrounds can help someone decide what crime really is. Crime gains popularity through the media such as, the news and social websites. Crime can also be reported differently, along with understood differently. Crime statistics can come from people who do a crime, victims, or an agency such as FBI or the UCR. Crime statistics also differ based on the society and social groups. Crime statistics and crime rates are not the exact numbers, they differ based on what data they have. Some potential reasons why the crime rate is falling in the United states could be, crimes are not getting reported, over crowded jails ( increase of incarceration), people do not report due to not wanting to speak to authority, or even fear of authority. Crime rate can never be exact because of those reasons. The dark figure of crime is a representation of crimes not being reported, or crimes reported over the media. This is important because a large portion of crimes are not reported and that is affecting victims as well of letting someone dangerous be out there. If all crimes committed were reported, crime rate and the dark figure could be figured out.
Crime is inherently what we define and perceive it to be. Something that we see as a crime today could very well be legal in the next few years due to our changing beliefs and culture. Everything from what is crime itself to how we punish people for said crime is based on our views as a society.
We constantly hear that the we live in an increasingly crime-riddled era, but, as proven by the statistics in the article, that’s just not true. The only difference is that the media is so weaponized to pounce on any violent crime and make it a cover story. It’s completely the opposite though. These falling crime rates could be attributed to many reasons. The first thought in my mind would be the growing economy and quality of life. More and more classes of people are seeing an increase in availability of a standard of living that wasn’t present 20 years ago. Incomes are going up, unemployment is down, and reasons for committing crimes are dwindling. That’s not to say that every part of the country is some middle-class utopia, but it’s certainly getting better. Another potential reason for the falling crime rate could be the increasing effectiveness of police and police technology that runs parallel with the amount of police brutality we see towards minorities. As sad as it is to see, any interaction with the police seemingly carries a risk of death with it, but without seeing the actual data, this could very well be another media-fueled story.
Crime is “socially constructed,” meaning that in one society or place, a social act may be acceptable whereas in another society or place, it may not be. People tend to view things differently than one another which causes disagreement with social laws. Crime statistics generally come from people who experience the crime, and without data, there would be no evidence of a crime. Statistics can come from many sources such as, the annual report from the FBI, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), Supplementary Homicide Reports, The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). According to crime statistics, the crime rate is falling in the United States due to these potential reasons:
– An increase in incarceration
– People not reporting the crime
With how today’s society is, people could be scared to tell their stories. With this being said, the “dark figure of crime” is a crime that is not reported and not known about. Crimes can go unreported for various reasons, but the issue that this causes is unreliable crime statistics.
TV plays a large influence on society’s view of crime rates because the statistics might be shown in different contexts. Crime is socially constructed meaning there is more than one single view. Social norms and cultures can alter our views on what is right/wrong. Crime statistics come from different sources. There is an annual report by the FBI, the Uniform Crime Report, which is a report of serious crimes informed to the police. Along with that there is the National Crime Victimization Survey, Supplementary Homicide Reports, and the Incident-Based Reporting System. The Crime Rate is falling, and according to the NYU School of Law, that answer is increasing incarceration. In other words, the jails are overcrowded. The crime rate is always falling because not all crime is reported because of various reasons like fear, embarrassment, or they may not feel like anything will be done. The dark figure of crime is a term used to describe the amount of crimes not reported or discovered. These crimes may not be reported because of fear of police.
Crime is spread through talk, news, and social media. Everywhere you go there is crime but the people there may see it as almost normal. Some places have higher crime rates but that doesn’t mean their crimes are any worse than a place with the lowest crime rate. The people in that area may see it as just the everyday thing and think some other place has it worse when that may not be the case. The majority of crime is measured by those who actually live it. Those who are in the neighborhood of the crimes are questioned about the crime to put a measure of crime on the area. Taking what these people say annually to put a measure on things is also supported by those who try to stop crime. The other reports come form the FBI annually, giving some proof of enforcement, and how much of it in different areas. Crime rate vary everywhere you go. This can be do to the differences in population or even the economical differences. Some people don’t have the money to afford things they need and turn to stealing as the only option.
The “dark figure of crime” is another phrase used for the reporting of observations or victims. Some people who witness crimes or know something about them may be afraid to come forward. This can potentially lead to the questioning of just accurate the official sources of crime statics are. It may cause people who are innocent be seen as guilty if not reported soon enough.
Everyone speaks about crime from one social group to another. If it weren’t for people constantly talking about the different crimes occurring around the world or within their societies, it is not something that would be very known or reported. When crime is referred to as being socially constructed, it is a perception of a particular situation based on many views within different social groups.
Crime statistics comes from a variety of sources. The main source of crime statistics comes from the people. Individuals report crimes, whether if it is directly to the police or if it is to social media. However, in a more official sense, the most viewed sources of crime statistics are Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), Supplementary Homicide Reports, The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), and the Nation Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).
When it comes to the falling rate of crime in the U.S., it is not really known why. Some potential reasons why the rate is falling could be;
– An increase in incarceration.
– Crime is literally just not being reported due to individuals not wanting to confront an authority figure.
-People may not think there is any point to report anything because nothing will be accomplished from doing so.
We may not ever know the reason without doing more research by asking individual all around the world.
The Dark figure of crime is simply another way of referring to crime that is reported among the people through social media or interactions but not reported through any law enforcement agency. Since people are not approaching or reporting crimes to law agencies, the crime statistics will definitely be off for that particular area.