AC 1.6 - Evaluating methods of collecting crime statistics

Question 1

name the 2 sources of crime statistics

Answer 1

crime survey
home office

Question 2

define police recorded crime/ home office/ police recorded statistics

Answer 2

statistics compiled by official government agencies each year that can be compared with previous years

Question 3

what does the home office investigate?

Answer 3

help measure the acts that are deemed to be criminal and are not reliant upon the victim’s interpretation of whether it was a crime

Question 4

what are the purposes of the home office? (4)

Answer 4

• builds an understanding of which crimes they have to tackle and so the UK are aware
• showing crimes in your local area
• safety
• aware of the different crime types

Question 5

define crime survey for england and wales

Answer 5

a victim survey that asks a sample of people each year about what crimes they have been victims of in the last 12 months

Question 6

what does the crime survey investigate?

Answer 6

the public’s experience of crimes over the last 12 months

Question 7

what is the purpose of the crime survey? (3)

Answer 7

to produce statistics on crime for different groups of people
so the UK is aware
to see which crimes the police need to prioritise

Question 8

how reliable is police recorded crime?

Answer 8

90% accurate
but is not reliable because:
- they don’t record certain crimes which can lead to dark figure of crime

Question 9

how reliable is the crime survey?

Answer 9

most reliable indicator for more common crime types
but cannot be reliable:
- people may not want to discuss what they are experiencing because of fear, shame
- misleading survey questions
- close- ended questions
- vague= can cause lying

Question 10

define reliability

Answer 10

the ability to repeat a piece of research again and obtain the same/ similar results

Question 11

define validity

Answer 11

experimenting if something accurately measures what it needs to

Question 12

how valid is police recorded crime?

Answer 12

• based off of police stats not the publics stats
• done by police officers dedicated to policing a certain ward

Question 13

how valid is the crime survey?

Answer 13

• based off of trends and crimes experienced by those aged 16+

Question 14

define ethics in research

Answer 14

the principles that guide the standards and behaviour of an individual, society, system or organisation

Question 15

how ethical is police recorded crime?

Answer 15

• ensure that they protect victims’ personal info
• they comply with all legal requirements regarding the data they hold

Question 16

how ethical is the crime survey?

Answer 16

• have recorded crime figures for community safety partnership
• only asked to people who are resident in households

Question 17

define representativeness

Answer 17

the degree of similarity of a study population compared to an external population

Question 18

how well is crime represented by police recorded crime?

Answer 18

• shown on a shaded map to show crime rates in each area compared to the average across London
• a crime data dashboard
• downloaded data into formats

Question 19

how well is crime represented by the crime survey?

Answer 19

• statistical bulletin
• tables
• graphs
• described in bullet points with statistics
• table of contents