CRIME AND DEVIANCE - MEASURING CRIME

Question 1

What is crime?

Answer 1

associated with behaviour that goes against the formal laws of society, punishments tend to be more serious - eg murdering someone

Question 2

What is deviance?

Answer 2

to move away or stray from set standards in society, refers to behaviour that is often controlled legally (but not always) - eg walking around naked

Question 3

How is crime socially constructed?

Answer 3

constructed within society based on culture, time and situation
Due to cultural diversity in contemporary society, views on what constitutes deviance may often vary within societies
Time - the period of time in history
Eg alcohol consumption in the US in the 1920s compared to in the US today (have to be over 21)
Culture - the norms and values of that particular society
Eg women exposing their legs in some Islamic societies, compared to women wearing mini skirts/shorts in Western societies
Situation - the context of the situation in which the behaviour was done
Eg killing a person in cold blood, compared to a soldier killing an enemy in the course of a battle

Question 4

What is social control?

Answer 4

the processes by which people are persuaded to obey the rules and conform, achieved by the agencies of social control
Formal social control: carried out by the government, the armed forces and the criminal justice system - obvious form of social control
Informal social control: carried out by agencies such as the education system, the family, peer groups, the media and religion (less obvious)

Question 5

What are official crime statistics?

Answer 5

statistics produced from the police, court, and prison records, as well as data collected in the Crime Survey for England and Wales (eg victim survey)

Question 6

What are strengths of official crime statistics?

Answer 6

Easy to access and already been compiled
Up-to-date and standardised (reflects modern society as not much lag between occurrence and reporting results)
Cover the whole population and go back many years so trends and patterns can be identified
No ethical issues
Provide ‘whole counts’, rather than estimates that are subject to sample variation (the whole country is included)
Objective data as requires no interpretation

Question 7

What are weaknesses of official statistics?

Answer 7

Doesn’t include undetected, unreported or unrecorded crime (dark figure of crime) as the police have a certain amount of discretion over whether to record a crime
Doesn’t provide a full picture about each crime as some information is not collected
Accuracy may vary between areas (eg if one area has a particular focus to meet)
Changes in public perception may influence them
Definitions, laws and police counting rules change over time so aren’t comparable
Changes in police practice and government policy may influence them
Pressure on the police to meet crime reduction targets may lead to some crimes disappearing

Question 8

What is the dark figure of crime?

Answer 8

term used for unrecorded crime, and it’s hard to estimate how large the figure is because the crime is not known about
Some types of crime are more likely to be in the dark figures than others (eg domestic abuse)

Question 9

What is the functionalist perspective of police recorded crime?

Answer 9

believe in the existence of social facts and measuring social behaviour scientifically so therefore trust quantitative data produced in statistics and see it as reliable and representative
They also believe there is a value consensus within society, so would see the police as representing all of us
They use the ‘typical criminal’ presented in police recorded crime figures (young, working class males)

Question 10

What is the new right perspective of police recorded crime?

Answer 10

accept the official picture of the typical criminal presented by the police recorded crime figures, since they too believe that laws are made for the benefit of society and applied equally
They focus on explaining criminality amongst the most deprived areas, known as the ‘underclass’, since statistics suggest most crime is committed by them

Question 11

What is the left realist view of police recorded crime?

Answer 11

recognise the police figures are not perfect, but they shouldn’t be dismissed because they are about real crimes
They suggest the police recorded crime should be supplemented by other methods, such as victim surveys

Question 12

What is the marxist view of police recorded crime?

Answer 12

see police recorded crime figures as a tool used to control the working class and justify the control and oppression
Police statistics are used to scare us and justify more policing

Question 13

What is the interactionist view of police recorded crime?

Answer 13

focus on the social construction of crime statistics, paying particular attention to police labelling and the consequences of interactions between powerless groups and the police and courts

Question 14

What is the radical criminologist view on police recorded crime?

Answer 14

tend to focus on the power of the police to label for particular reasons - such ideas have also been used to challenge the overrepresentation of certain ethnic minority groups in police recorded crime figures

Question 15

What is the feminist view on police recorded crime?

Answer 15

accept the official picture that females commit less crime than males but try to explain why by looking at the high social control applied to females

Question 16

What are victim surveys?

Answer 16

an alternative way of measuring crime which involves surveying people about which crimes they have been victims of in a given period
An example is The Crime Survey for England and Wales

Question 17

What is The Crime Survey for England and Wales?

Answer 17

one of the largest social survey in Britain and mainly involves face-to-face structured interviews
Only those over 18 were originally included, and then those over 16, but since 2009 children aged 10-15 are also included
It is a national representative sample of around 35,000 adults and 3,000 children per year
Respondents are interviewed in their own homes by trained interviewers using a structured questionnaire that is administered on a laptop computer, that include questions about property and personal crimes they’ve experienced
The survey tends to show that crime is much higher than the police figures suggest, for some crimes it’s up to 4x higher

Question 18

What are strengths of victim surveys?

Answer 18

Shows crime rates that aren’t included in police recorded crime figures (dark figure)
Successful at developing special measures to estimate the extent of domestic violence, stalking and sexual victimisation (least reported to the police but among the most serious in terms of impact on the victim)
Also includes questions on people’s attitudes about crime related topics
The Crime Survey for England and Wales has a nationally representative sample
High response rate (75% and 68% 2013-2014)
The survey is weighted to adjust for possible non-response bias

Question 19

What are weaknesses of victim surveys?

Answer 19

Doesn’t involve victimless crimes or crimes where the ‘victim’ is a large corporation
Only people over 16 have been asked in the past so crimes with child victims weren’t picked up on (until 2009)
Only surveys a sample, so overall trends are an estimate which may not be representative
Response rate is around 75%, missing potentially important data
Young presented a comprehensive evaluation of victim surveys and argued that a ‘dark figure’ is also present in victim surveys
Relying on the honesty of the respondents, when it’s possible they could lie

Question 20

What are self report studies for crime?

Answer 20

a method of measuring crime that involves asking people which rimes they themselves have committed
Often carried out on young people and tend to focus on certain types of crimes and deviance (minor)
Rather than just measuring crime, this method gives an insight into criminality, so is favoured by interpretivist sociologists
They are mainly quantitative, and usually involve a list of offences requiring the responded to tick the ones they’ve committed
The findings often provide a challenge to the picture of the ‘typical criminal’ presented in police recorded crime figures
They can be longitudinal, meaning they follow the same group of participants over a number of ears to get an overview of their criminality
Usually measure difference variables, such as family background, peers, education, area, gender and ethnicity

Question 21

What are examples of self report studies?

Answer 21

The Jack-roller (Shaw) involved a series of unstructured interviews it build up the ‘life history’ of a criminal
The Edinburgh study was a longitudinal self report study of the offending careers of over 4000 young people and focuses on gender differences

Question 22

What are strengths of self report studies?

Answer 22

West and Farrington found that, at the age of 18, 94% of convicted boys admitted that they have been convicted, with only 2% of unconvicted boys claiming they have been convicted - showing the high honesty of the participants
The Edinburgh study gained the informed consent of parents, through a letter from the researchers, parents could withdraw their children and everyone was fully informed about the purpose of the study

Question 23

What are weaknesses of self report studies?

Answer 23

Due to the subject matter, there are obvious concerns about the truthfulness and accuracy of the data as participants may conceal their offending
Validity is usually assessed by comparing them against recorded arrests
Attrition (drop out rates) is an important issues as participants who are most difficult to find and interview tend to commit the most offences
Key issues relate to informed consent, confidentiality and the right to withdraw
Self report studies usually focus on relatively small groups of people, on particular types of crime so do not give us an overall picture reducing representativeness