between Canada and the United States. This interest stems from the desire to discover causal explanations for

crime and to develop more effective criminal justice and social policies (Archer & Gartner 1984; Howard, Newman,

Pridemore 2000). Unfortunately, methodological complexities have placed considerable barriers to such comparisons.

Differences between national data sources, both for police reported and victimization surveys, have hampered

accurate comparisons. Despite these divergent national data collection systems, the tendency has been to compare

crime rates between countries with little or no attention to these limitations. Recently, the proliferation of the Internet

has led to the growth in this type of misinformation.

Recognizing the methodological hurdles, along with the benefits of comparing crime rates between Canada and

the United States, the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics has undertaken the task of assessing the feasibility of

comparing police reported statistics between Canada and the United States. This report, which represents the first

step of this study, compares and contrasts t

limitations. Arrest/charge data may not be representative of the amount of crime in a country. Not all incidents of

specific details, such as the location of robbery. Although these comparisons would not be nationally representative,

may be made using the Canadian incident-based survey.

rates. In these cases, arrests/charges would closely resemble the actual number of reported offences.

assaulting "with the intent to steal"; or stealing "while armed with an offensive weapon or imitation thereof" ( Canadian

only 8 offences and collects arrest data on an additional 21 offences. The different range of offences presents an

Although there is a greater number of offences available for comparison at the accused level, there are some major

thus, an incident with both rape and robbery will only result in the recording and counting of rape. Conversely,

Some common words found in the essay are:
Canadian American, UCR Surveys3, Canada United, Canadian Assaults, Canadian UCR, Newman Pridemore, Reporting UCR, Reports United, Survey GSS, United Despite, aggravated assault, attempted murder, canada united, american aggregate, police reported, aggregate survey, ucr survey, scoring rules, arrest data, canadian american, arrest data additional, aggregate ucr survey, knife/cutting instrument dangerous, serious offence rule, comparison canada united,
Approximate Word count = 1646
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)