Unit Test

Today we are having a unit test on Chapter 5 Correlates of Crime. The test is open book but there will be a time limit. I am guessing around 50 minutes. Make sure you have your booklet as well as the Chapter 5 text.

Be familiar with the key terms and you should do fine.

Review Day

Today we spent most of class reviewing for the open book quiz on Tuesday. The test will be on the Correlates of Crime. Also there was an App that I found very interesting that I had the students download. It was the BC Civil Liberties app. Very informative.
 Also, I had the students fill out a course evalutation form to help me shape the course for the rest of the year.

 

Racial Profiling

Today we discussed the issue with racial profiling. We looked at what it is and how it is prevalent in our society. Thanks to the efforts of Geety and Shalu, we got a first hand look at how devestating the effects of racial profiling could be. All this ties into correlates of crime....remember race/age/SES/
The students had a chance to research what racial profiling means:

• Define it/what is it?
• pros/cons
• stop and frisk law in New York
• ties to Canadian history

Students were then given an article to read "Once Appalled by Race Profiling, many find themselves doing it".
Students were to read the article and comment on what they think of racial profiling.  Post it to your blogs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyCDBmtu3og&feature=related

Offender analysis

Yesterday the students worked in small groups or partners analyzing their offender. The purpose was to have another person to share your ideas/theories on. I hope that sheds a new light on your subject. Sometimes hearing or discussing the details of the same offender will allow you to see some facts or info. that you missed. Hopefully this was a useful class.
The complete write up on both your subjects will be due next class which will be Tuesday December 11/12.

Your test on Correlates of Crime will be on Thursday Dec 13.

Case Study

Today you were assigned two case histories to analyze. The cases deal with individuals who are currently serving time in prison in South Africa. Your goal is to become familiar with the cases.
Make sure you give this assignment some serious thought and effort. It will allow me to gauge how well you understand the correlate of crime.

I have provided a link to the research project that these case histories were a part of. It may give more insight on your subject.
Perpetrators of Crime

Correlates of Crime Booklet

Which Canadians are most likely to commit crimes? Are older people more likely to commit crimes than younger people? Are men more likely to commit crimes than women? Are upper class people more or less likely to break the law than their lower class counterparts. Which provinces have the highest rate of crime? Each of these quesions asks about a correlate of crime. Correlates of crime are those phenomena that are associated with criminal activity. While a list of such phenomena would include any number of conditions, the discussion in this chapter will be limited to some of the social conditions that are correlated with crime.

On Tuesday I gave the class a booklet that walks you through the key points of the chapter. One important thing to remember is to do the booklet on your own. Use the booklet as a study guide/notes. The material in this chapter is fairly dense...lots of talk about research done by different social scientists. Although there are few definitive answers given...it allows you to appreciate how difficult it is to prove causation.
The booklet will be due this Friday

Today we discussed correlates of crime and how it related to the documentary The Interupters.
The class came up with the following correlates:

Age
    - most crime is committed by youth
    - most of the individuals in the documentary were young
    - ages ranged from 15-24.

Sex
    - most were males (some were females but not many)

Race
    - African American
    - Hispanics

Socio-economic Status
    - poor
    - uneducated
    - unemployed
    - single parent homes

Region
    - inner city
    - Chicago
    - rough part of town
    - easy access to drugs/guns

Drug use
    -  most of the guys were either using drugs or selling drugs


We also starting working on a Ch 5 booklet which is due on Thursday Nov. 29

Interrupters

Today we discussed the issue of correlates of crime.
Correlates of crime....variables or factors that are regularly associated with crime.
We discussed the difference between causation and correlation. Correlates do not cause crime, they are meerly associated with crime. That association is what we will examine in this chapter

One key correlate is AGE.
The age between 15 to 24 represents only 14% of the overall population but counts for 45% of those accused of property crimes and 32% of those accused on violent crimes.

WHY?
     - this age is a period of ambiguity....social postioning
     - joblessness
     - excess energy
     - drugs
     - easily infuenced
     - gangs

All these create tension.....which leads to crime.

We began watching the movie Interrupters.....we will continue next class.

Counting crime Test

Last class you wrote an open book quiz on chapter 4. The test was marked today in class.
Last class you were responsible for making a blog entry on anything intesting you found on the statsCanada website.
There were many graphs and crime stats that were provided. Find one that stood out to you and comment on why.

Data Questions

Today we worked on defining key terms that you will need to know for this chapter. I will post a link to the questions as well.
Both Definitions and Questions will be due on Thursday Nov. 8/12.
Also....those of you who have not linked your blog to the class blog will have until this Tuesday to do that. After that, you will not get credit for the blog entries.

Presentations

Today the students presented their projects. Very interesting that each group ended up having more questions than answers at the end of the project. That was the purpose of the project. Each group did a good job of formulating your experiment and presenting their findings to the class. We will continue with the presentations next class and then work on Data collection and the challenges we face in determining how accurate our crime rate really is.

Here is the title of the book that is a fantastic read!

Counting Crime

This chapter deals with the collection and interpritation of cime statistics. Over the past century, those who have tried to undertand crime have relied heavily on statistical descriptions of criminal behavior, criminals, and the criminal justice response. What we know about crime depends on the quality, coverage, reliability and validity of our measures of crime.
This chapter will describe how social scientists count crime. After discussing the problems of the validity and reliability of our measures of crime, we will introduce the long standing debate over whether crime statistics accurately reflect the amount of crime in Canada or whether they merely relfect the activity of the criminal justice system. To help you to understand the strenghts and weaknesses of Canadian crime statistics, we descibe how the administrative records of the police, courts and prisons are turned into measures describing the amount of crime and the characteristics of offenders an victims. This process involves developing clear procedures concerning units of count, levels of data aggregation definitions, deata elements and counting procedures. Particular attention will be paid to the most commonly used measure of crime: the Uniform Crime Report system(UCR). The UCR is basd on crimes reported to the police across the country. Finally, the chapter describes victimization surveys and self-report studies. These provide data that are complimentary to those produced by the UCR.

Project Due Date Changed

Hi guys...hopefully you all get a chance to read this before tomorrow's class. I have had numerous students ask for clarification on how to present their projects. Also, many are unsure of how to interprit their results. I will push the presentation deadline to Thursday November 1 (I realize this is a day after Halloween) Tomorrow we will spend a bit of time of how I want the project to look and then we will move on to the next chapter which will look at crime figures and how to interprit them.
See you all tomorrow.

Vancouver Police Museum/Walk

Yesterday and today we went to the Vancouver Police Museum . The day was split between working in the museum and walking through Chinatown, Gastown and the Downtown East Side. An interesting couple of days...I am glad to be writing this post from the comforts of my living room. I am not one for cold weather.
I want you to write a blog post expressing what you learned from the field trip. What did you like/dislike...please explain how to make this field trip better for next year.

Continuing work on Project

The last two classes have been spent working on your experiments. By now most groups have developed their surveys and scales. Make sure you have talked to the appropriate teachers to arrange a time when your group can come in and go over your survey.
Choose your age group carefully.

The next few days are going to be a bit hectic....with the Breaking Down Barriers workshop and field trips...be prepared to work with some of your group member not being there.

Deadline for the project is going October 30/12....YOU WILL BE PRESENTING ON THIS DAY

Violence/Media Cont.

Today we focused on working in groups to figure out the best way to implement the experiment.
Questions to consider:

• what kind of survey/questionairre....how many questions
• grade level/ what teachers should we talk to
• type of media to use.....images/video
• scale....the different ways to weigh it...

Students should divide the tasks so as not to repeat the steps....

Criminology Experiment

Today we continued our discussion on violence and media. We will be starting our project where you will get a chance to conduct a criminology experiment on your fellow students. The focus will be on how violence affects children. Today we spent time researching the links between the two.  Some of the things we discussed was ethics. This is an example of a famous experiment that called into question the ethics of the researcher.

Next day we will be working on formulating a hypothesis and designing a methodology to test this hypothesis by means of an experiment.

The Great Pumpkin Experiment

  

 

We discussed the Scientific Method today....handout on how an experiement is done.
After much discussion we decided to look at the issue of pumpkin size and number of seeds.
Students go into groups and carved up the pumpkins to count the seeds. The students tested their hypothesis and will now chart their results and look at formulating their conclusions.

We start your criminology experiments next class!!!

Criminal Minds

We watched an episode of Criminal Minds. We didn't get through all of it las class so we will finish watching the rest of it on Tuesday. We will have a discussion on what the value of these types of shows are soon.

How to Research

How to do a proper internet research:

1. Keywords to search....make sure your search is not too narrow or too broad

2.  Use different search engines.....

• Google (Scholar)
• Bing
• Yahoo
• Metacrawler
• Surfwax
• Clusty

3.  Bookmark pages.....that way you can find them at a later date and examine them closer

4.  Consider source

• should have no commercials
• opinion/fact
• is overly positive or negative
• APA format

Used the following website to research 'Unsolved Mysteries"

Unsolved Mysteries

Prostitution or Pitbulls

I want you to choose one of the following two articles. Both have had considerable media coverage over the last few years. Both articles deal with issues that are polarizing in that people are very passionate about them. You need to read one of the articles and take a side. Consider why you have the opinion that you do? Has the media swayed your view on this topic?
Your response must take a side and then explain why you feel that way. Please post your response on your blog by the end of next week....October 5

Prostitution

http://www.theprovince.com/life/Editorial+time+bulls/7172256/story.html

Violence in the Media

Today we focused on how and why the media misrepresents violence. Most Canadians learn about serious crime through the media rather than from first-hand experience. Stories in radio, tv and newspaperssshape our views avout crime and criminals. Writers of tv shows and movies use violence to attract viewers and to sell tickets. Newspaper editors and tv reporters select crime news to maximize ratings.

Today we looked at this media misrepresentation.

• top 10 list of most violent movies/video games
• search through local newspaper to find articles skewed for violence
• discuss the question....can the media cause crime/violence

 Students were responsible for the following assignment:

Find a individual who has been linked to a serious crime (ie. murder) who has blamed it on some form of media:

1. Give the name of the individual
2. What was the crime
3. What sentence was handed down
4. What evidence was used in court to convict this person
5. What was the defence used by the accused (how was the media blamed)
6. your opinion....do you think it was legit?

Homework   Post your response to this work on your blog!!!

Thursday September 13 2012

Today we discussed the difference between Consensus Theory of Law and Conflict Theory of Law
Also....the students get a chance to create their own blogs!!! Good luck....I hope you have better success than I did.
The purpose of your personal blog is going to be like having your own portfolio.

Welcome to Crim 12 Blog

This blog is intended for you to interact with the course on many levels

Few issues attract more public attention and generate more public debate than those involving crime and victimization. Unfortunately these debates are too often based on emotion rather than the best available information. Students in Criminology 12 will be able to gain insights into the origin and maintenance of criminal behaviour, why some behaviours are criminal and others are not, and how the criminal justice system works. The overall objective is to provide students with the theories and methods necessary to better understand the realities of crime and control, which will allow them to participate and hopefully make a difference in these areas.

Tuesday September 11 2012

Today we worked on a couple of different things

• self evaluation write up on your personality test
• discussion on what is a crime? Are we criminals for downloading free music from the internet?
• What is Criminology?
• Handed out Chapter 1 booklet
• Read two stories of the Sand Brothers and Conrad Black.....Pg. 3-9. Venn diagram on the similarities and differences between the two case studies........Due next class