Crime statistics

Question 1

What are the two main sources of information on the level and types of crimes committed?

Answer 1

Police recorded crime and the British Crime Survey

Question 2

What is the ‘dark figure of crime’?

Answer 2

The number of crimes that are not reported which leads to statistics that do not represent the total volume of crime

Question 3

Why should ‘Recorded versus known offences’ be taken as a reason to distrust official crime statistics?

Answer 3

Official statistics do not even give a complete record of criminal offences known to the authorities

Question 4

Why should ‘Police recording practices’ be taken as a reason to distrust official crime statistics?

Answer 4

Known offences are not not being truthfully provided by police records and are therefore not appearing in official statistics

Question 5

Why should ‘Police priorities’ be taken as a reason to distrust official crime statistics?

Answer 5

The number and type of offences discovered by the police in the course of their operations will vary according to their priorities which affects crime statistics

Question 6

Why should ‘Reporting and non-reporting’ be taken as a reason to distrust official crime statistics?

Answer 6

Over 80% of all recorded crime is reported by the public, but some types of crime are more likely to be reported than others

Question 7

Why should ‘The significance of crime statistics’ be taken as a reason to distrust official crime statistics?

Answer 7

Numbers and statistics do not give an indication of the significance of the crimes that are reported, for example vandalism and sexual offences are represented as the same values within statistics

Question 8

Explain the sentence ‘Crime is a social construct’

Answer 8

Crime is defined and its meanings are constructed in the course of social interaction

Question 9

Summarise the main trend in crime occurrence recorded by the police

Answer 9

Since the 1990s, the figures have gone up and down, but remained at a high level in comparison to earlier years

Question 10

How does the ‘Reporting of crime’ account for the increase in crime since the 1970s?

Answer 10

Crime is being reported far more than when it was in earlier years due to increased telephone/mobile phone ownership, people are less willing to tolerate certain types of crime and because of the break-up of traditional, close-knit communities

Question 11

How do ‘New crimes and new opportunities’ account for the increase in crime since the 1970s?

Answer 11

New crimes emerge as do new opportunities to commit existing crimes. For example the invention of credit and debit cards and computers provides opportunities for theft and fraud which did not exist 50 years ago

Question 12

How do ‘Changes in legislation’ account for the increase in crime since the 1970s?

Answer 12

These changes may result in more crimes being reported as more behaviours are being labelled as deviant

Question 13

What is the British Crime Survey, and how often does it take place?

Answer 13

The BCS is a victim study that was conducted every two years from 1982 to 2000, and every year since then - it asks people if they have been a victim of particular crimes

Question 14

According to the BCS, what proportion of crimes end up in police statistics?

Answer 14

Only 29% of all BCS crimes were actually recorded by the police and entered the official statistics of police recorded crime

Question 15

Compare trends in recorded crime and BCS estimates. What accounts for recent differences?

Answer 15

A new counting rule for recorded crime was introduced in 1998 and the National Crime Recording Standard came into operation in 2002 which increased the volume of police recorded crime

Question 16

What is the conviction rate?

Answer 16

The conviction rate is the number of convictions divided by the number of criminal cases brought

Question 17

What are the social characteristics of offenders according to official data?

Answer 17

Male, Under the age of 30, Working class and of an ethnic minority background

Question 18

What is a self report study?

Answer 18

Self-report studies of crime ask people whether they have committed a series of offences and are usually based on a self-completed questionnaire or an interview

Question 19

What do self report studies into ‘Crime being normal’ tell us?

Answer 19

Self report studies suggest that most of us have committed at least one crime at some stage in our lives

Question 20

What do self report studies into ‘Gender’ tell us?

Answer 20

Self report studies indicate that far more males than females commit crimes

Question 21

What do self report studies into ‘Social class’ tell us?

Answer 21

Self report studies suggest a link between social class and criminal behaviour and they indicate that the lower a persons position in the class system, the more likely they are to commit a crime

Question 22

What do self report studies into ‘Ethnicity’ tell us?

Answer 22

There is little difference between Blacks and Whites in self reported crime

Question 23

Why are Reiner and William Chambliss sceptical of crime statistics?

Answer 23

Reiner argues that most police resources are dedicated to patrolling areas where young, working class makes spend their social lives and Chambliss believes that lower class people are treated more harshly in terms of their sentencing and the scrutiny they receive