Crime statistics Flashcards
What are crime statistics?
A collection of numerical data based on various methods of measuring the amount of crime in society
What is the dark figure of statistics in crime?
A large amount of crimes aren’t reported and therefore aren’t a part of the statistics so ultimately are inaccurate
Are statistics facts or social constructions?
Social constructions as social control agencies e.g. police and courts control the construction of crimes
-Also victim, public and perpetrators are influential
-The way law evolves means some behaviours become legal and illegal comparing trends
What are the 3 ways to record data for crime statistics?
Police recorded statics
Victim surveys
Self report studies
What are police recorded statistics?
police recorded statistics are drawn from the records kept by the police and other official agency’s published every 6 months by the home office
-Collected since 1857
-Detect and reporting and recording of crimes
Problem with police recorded statistics?
Not all crime are reported to the police
Charactaristics of someone thats more likely to be taken seriously by the police?
White, middle class and male
Pleabarganing and their influence of police statistics?
Informal agreement where defendants will try to get the lightest sentence possible
Affecting statistics because sentences may not reflect severity of crime
What are victim surveys?
Surveys asking a sample of the population weather they have been victims of crime and if so, has it been reported to the police
-Used by the govt providing a comparison to the police statistics
-CSEW (Crime survey for england and wales)
VS- how do the CSEW maximize the representativeness of the survey?
Getting 40,000 sample
all household involved
VS- how can groups be left out?
Dosent evenly proportion ethnic minoritys and genders
VS- what crimes are excluded from surveys?
Homicide
Crimes against businesses
Sexual offence
Strengths of police statistics and victim survay?
-Significant proportion of offences never recorded by police
-Local victim survey highlight higher victim allegations than national figure of certain groups of certain crimes
-Gives a good picture of victimisation
Weakness of police statistics and victim survays?
-May choose not to report
-Categorisation of crimes different to police
-Problem basing statistic on memory
What are self report studies?
Surveys selecting a cross section of the population and ask them what criminal behaviour they have committed
-Used by sociologists e.g. campbell
Self report studies strengths?
-Most usefull method to find out about victimless crime (drug)
-Useful to find out characteristics of offenders not processed via police
Self report weaknesses?
-Uncovers minor deviance, unlikely to reveal big crime
-Lack of representativeness e.g. youth
-Respondents may lie or exaggerate (social desirability)
Interpretivists on crime statistics?
Does not concentrate on understanding way people are socially constructed
Criticisng positivists view on crime statistics?
We arent understanding why people are ignoring underlying reasons
Left realist view on crime statistics?
Prefer local crime surveys as they revel basis for many peoples genuine fear of crime
Femenist veiw in crime statistics?
Critical as they dont reflect woman sexually assulted in private settings and those that cant report crime
Marxists view on criminal statistics?
Crimes committed by the rich are unrepresented to keep rich in power using lower class as a scapegoat
