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The Accuracy of Public Beliefs about Crime Further Evidence
Author(s) -
WARR MARK
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
criminology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.467
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1745-9125
pISSN - 0011-1384
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1982.tb00456.x
Subject(s) - categorical variable , psychology , perception , criminology , affect (linguistics) , social psychology , sample (material) , violent crime , human factors and ergonomics , poison control , environmental health , medicine , statistics , chemistry , mathematics , communication , chromatography , neuroscience
Criminologists largely agree that public beliefs about crime are inaccurate, and some seem willing to abandon crime reduction as a policy goal in favor of strategies which directly affect public perceptions of crime. Yet direct tests of the accuracy of public beliefs about crime are rare. In a sample survey of Tucson adults, respondents were asked to estimate the percentage of Tucson juveniles who had committed each of fifteen offenses (i.e., the categorical rates of the offenses) and the offender sex ratio for each offense. Responses were compared with self‐reported data from students in three Tucson high schools. Among the fifteen offenses there is remarkable agreement between the perceived categorical rates, sex ratios, and the self‐reported figures. Taken in conjunction with earlier studies, these findings suggest that strategies designed to reduce the social consequences of crime by altering public beliefs about crime are unlikely to succeed unless they are accompanied by true reductions in the crime rate.