Book Review: Catalano, S. M. (2006). The Measurement of Crime: Victim Reporting and Police Recording. New York: LFB Scholarly. 230 pp

• Author: MiRang Park
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016809332190
• Published date: 01 September 2009
• Date: 01 September 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

Book Reviews 455

of consensus has developed as to the broad dynamics that link the two; prevailing notions

of morality and moral conduct in many places constrain both the development and the

content of positive law. By the same token, enactment and official support for laws that

have little, if any, moral backing in time may reshape moral understandings. The laws that

define criminal offenses are more than technical rules devoid of moral meaning. Nothing

in this book contradicts or is inconsistent with these lessons, a fact from which criminolo-

gists in the academy as well as those who crusade against white-collar crime can draw

confidence.

Lying, Cheating, and Stealing is original and skillfully argued, and readers interested in

problems of legal philosophy will find it thought provoking and useful. Its appeal and

potential use for empirical investigators is more limited.

Neal Shover

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Catalano, S. M. (2006). The Measurement of Crime: Victim Reporting and Police Recording. New

York: LFB Scholarly. 230 pp.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016809332190

All people who learn criminology acknowledge how to measure crime rates. It is the first

step in criminology. Once people start to study criminology, they are taught what a crime

is, how crimes are measured, and what the best tool is to measure crime. Many books cover

these issues in their early chapters so that students can gain a basic sense about crime. In

general, the most common tools to measure crime are divided into two categories. The first

category is the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR), based on police reports. The second

category is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) asking about victimization

experiences of the general public during a particular period.

It is unfortunate that serious differences have been found in the results of the two types

of measurements. The differences have centered on different type of crimes, leading to dif-

fering interpretations of current and past crime patterns. The disadvantages most com-

monly pointed out for UCR are types of crime belonging to index I and index II and the

hierarchy rule against one crime scene. Also, because UCR is based on police reports,

unreported crime is always missed in official data. However, the NCVS is a longitudinal

crime survey asking about crime victimization. Although it is possible that victims will

exaggerate and distort their experiences, and it cannot measure homicide, it is more flexible

in reflecting current trends, such as domestic violence. Indeed, the NCVS recently added

items to measure victimization through domestic violence. The fact that there is more than

one tool to measure crime in the nation is both good and bad.

The author’s questions start with the reason for having two measures. As a statistician,

Catalano questions whether the nation requires two measures of crime if the UCR and

NCVS are now in agreement regarding the level of crime in the country. The author is try-

ing to show the difference between two sets of official crime data. The analysis proceeds

in two stages. The first stage includes an examination of the graphical presentation of the

variables contained in Appendix 1 to ascertain whether similar increases are evident in the