Alternative sources of statistics

Question 1

victim surveys

Answer 1

E.g. the Crime Survey for England & Wales (CSEW) asks individuals what crimes they have been victims of (usually in the last 12 months). One thing they ask is for victims to identify the ethnicity of the person who committed the crime against them. E.g. in the case of ‘mugging’, black people are significantly over-represented among those identified by victims as offenders.

However, Phillips & Bowling (2012) found evidence to suggest that white victims may ‘over-identify’ black offenders – saying an offender was black even when they were not sure. Victim surveys do show us that a great deal of crime is intra-ethnic – it takes place within rather than between ethnic groups.

Question 2

Self-report studies

Answer 2

These ask individuals to disclose their own dishonest & violent behaviour. The findings of self-report studies challenge the stereotype of black people as being more likely than whites to offend as white people are much more likely to say they had committed an offence & therefore appear to be more likely to offend than black people, but black people are much more likely than whites to be arrested, convicted & imprisoned.

However, although many self-report studies cover a reasonably large response rate they may not be representative of offenders in general & there is always a strong possibility that many respondents may lie which would affect the validity of the results.