CHAPTER 2 – MEASURING AND COMPARING
CRIME IN AND ACROSS NATIONS
Multiple Choice
1. The first attempt to collect data on crime at the international level occurred at:
A. The General Statistical Congress in Brussels
B. International Congress on the Prevention and Repression of Crime in London
C. The Conference of the International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation
D. The Economic and Social Council of the UN
2. Which of the following is not one of the three major perspectives of a criminal incident:
A. The perspective of the offender
B. The perspective of the victim
C. The perspective of the media
D. The perspective of the police
3. The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) are compiled by:
A. Interpol
B. The United Nations
C. Independent police stations
D. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
4. Which crime statistics initiative collects data on every incident and arrest within 22
offense categories made up of 46 specific crimes?
A. Uniform Crime Report (UCR)
B. National Incident- Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
C. The National Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS)
D. The Dark figure of crime
5. Which of the following collects information from member countries about crime rates
and the operations of the criminal justice systems?
A. Uniform Crime Report (UCR)
B. International Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS)
C. National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
D. United Nations Surveys of Crime and Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice
Systems (CTS)
6. Which of the following is not one of the crimes that the National Crime Victimization
Survey collects data on?
A. Rape
B. Larceny
C. Murder
D. Motor vehicle theft
7. Which crime statistics assembly method involves people reporting their own delinquent
and criminal acts?
A. National Crime Victimization Surveys
B. Self- Report Surveys
C. National Incident-Based Reporting
D. Uniform Crime Report
8. The best available sources of international crime data are:
A. Self-Report Surveys
B. Interpol Data
C. International Victimization Surveys
D. National Crime Victimization Surveys
9. The primary collection tool used in the International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS) is:
A. Paper surveys
B. Email surveys
C. Face to face interviews
D. Computer assisted telephone interviewing
10. Which problem has plagued comparative researches for many years in regards to
international crime statistics?
A. Lack of standard definitions of crime
B. Lack of resources
C. Lack of cooperation between countries
D. Lack of statistical methods
11. Which one of the following regions has one of the highest homicide rates?
A. Western Europe
B. East Asia
C. Central America
D. Southeastern Europe
12. Which of the following of our model countries has the lowest homicide rates?
A. France
B. Saudi Arabia
C. China
D. United States
13. Which model country has the lowest overall crime rates?
A. Japan
B. Saudi Arabia
C. China
D. Germany
14. The majority of the American Crime problem is one of:
A. White collar crime
B. Violent crime
C. Property crime
D. Victimless crime
15. When looking at the 10 crimes surveyed by the ICVS, in comparison to the model
countries the United States has:
A. Highest overall crime rates
B. Lowest overall crime rates
C. Not the highest or lowest overall crime rates
D. Highest rates in some categories
Sentence Completion
1. ______________ is a worldwide problem that directly or indirectly touches every one of
us in multiple ways.
2. _____________ evaluates the probability that certain crimes will occur and their
potential harm.
3. Collecting data about crime in any one country over an extended period of time allows us
to distinguish ______________ from ____________.
4. The CTS questionnaire consists of four parts dealing primarily with statistical
information about the main components of the ____________________ and an
__________.
5. The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) are collected by individual _______________ and
compiled by the _________________ annually.
6. The UCR program is _______________, so not all police departments report crime data
every year.
7. The NCVS improves our knowledge of the true extent of crime by reducing the
______________ of crime.
8. _______________ is helpful because it is able to compare information about known
offenders with those who have not been caught.
9. The ____________________________ study uses a standard instrument to compare
juvenile rates of crime in 12 European locations and the United States.
10. A ________________ is one with a low level of material and social development. It is
measured by such indicators as income per person, life expectancy and literacy rates.
11. A _________________ is one with a high level of development, measured by indicators
such as, gross domestic product and industrialization.
12. The best available sources of _____________________ are international victimization
surveys.
13. The ____________ is now the most extensive standardized survey of victims in the
world.
14. At the root of the problem of non-standardized definitions is the issue of determining
what a _________ is versus what is __________.
15. Approximately _______ percent of all homicides are committed with firearms.
True/False
1. Understanding crime trends is important both domestically and internationally.
2. In regards to crime, perceived risk and social action are closely tied to each other.
3. Measuring crime and comparing crime data does not provide clues as to why some
nations are more successful than others in controlling crime rates.
4. The CTS focuses more on information about criminal justice systems than on the
measurement of crime.
5. Interpol still reports data from its member countries.
6. The NCVS finds that overall, approximately 50 percent of violent crimes and all property
crimes are reported to the police.
7. There is fairly close correspondence between the crime definitions used by the UCR and
NCVS, which makes it possible to assess national crime information from the viewpoint
of the victim and the police.
8. Self-report surveys are used mostly with adults and usually in national samples.
9. The ICVS is only interested in incidents reported to the police.
10. According to the ICVS, when taking all sexual offenses together, victims knew the
offender in about half the cases.
11. What a country decides is illegal tells us something about that nation’s social, economic,
and political situation.
12. Homicide rates should be more reliable than those for other crimes, because of the
presence of a human body in nearly every case.
13. The data show that in recent years has been a general increase in homicide rates in most
countries.
14. China regularly reports high rates of crime each year.
15. Easy access to guns is one factor that may contribute to the high homicide rates in the
United States.
Short Answer Questions
1. List four (4) out of five (5) reasons that some countries do not collect some form of crime
data, according to Mueller.
2. Explain some factors that influence Japan’s low crime rate.
3. Explain Saudi Arabia’s explanations for their low crime rate. Also, discuss any
contradictory reasoning.
4. Why does the United States have such a high rate of violent crime?
Essay Questions
1. List the three major perspectives of each criminal incident and discuss the type of data
collection method that corresponds with each perspective.
2. List and explain the four approaches to explaining criminal behavior discussed in the text.
3. Discuss the four (4) main flaws of the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).