Crime statistics Flashcards
What are the advantages and disadvantages of police recorded statistics?
These official statistics are particularly useful in that they have been collected since 1857 and so provide us with an excellent
historical overview of changing trends over time. They also give us a completely accurate view of the way that the criminal justice system processes offenders through arrests, trials, punishments
and so on.
However there are issues with these statistics as they are considered by some sociologists as a social construction. This is
sue to the fact that they are based solely on reported crime and it is an obvious limitation that not all crime is reported for a number
of reasons.
Why might people not report a crime they have been the victim of?
The victims feel that the crime is too trivial to bother the police with.
It is considered a private matter between friends and family, and will seek redress directly, or they don’t want to get the offender into trouble.
The victims are too embarrassed or ashamed to report it.
The victim may not be in a position to give information. Example?
They fear reprisals.
Lack faith in the police to solve the crime. Who might be most prone to this?
In addition not all of the crime that is reported to the police appears on the official statistics. In 2014, a report by the UK Parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee said there was “strong
evidence” of under-recording, which was exaggerating the rate of decrease in crime. Police
forces throughout England and Wales were found to have an “utterly unacceptable” rate of
accurately recording crime.
The then HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) estimated almost one-in-five crimes were not being recorded.
What factors impact whether or not police record crimes?
The police will often use their own discretion and professional judgement to decide how to deal with a
complaint, in a process known as filtering. Factors involved in their decision making have been
identified as follows:
Seriousness – They may regard the offence as too trivial or simply not a criminal matter.
Classifying crimes – When a person makes a complaint, police officers must decide what category
the offence is in. How they classify the offence will decide its seriousness. So, the police officers’
opinion determines the category and seriousness of crime (from assault, to aggravated assault for
example.)
Social status – More worryingly, they may view the social status of the person reporting the matter
as not high enough to regard the issue as worth pursuing, or high enough that it is better to ignore
the situation.
Discretion – Only about 10% of offences are actually uncovered by the police. However, the
chances of being arrested for an offence increase markedly depending upon the ‘demeanour’ of the
person being challenged by a police officer (we will look at this in more detail later).
Promotion and relationships at work – Police officers, like everyone else, have career and promotion concerns. This involves trying to impress senior officers. However, they also need to get on with other colleagues, who do not like officers who are too ‘keen’, as this makes more work for
everyone. Arrests reflect a balance between comradeship and a desire for promotion.
Explain the role of courts and government and law enforcement agencies in influencing official statistics.
Official statistics of crimes committed and punished also reflect the decisions and sentences of the court- and these statistics are also a reflection of a social process (e.g. the
assumption that people will plead guilty to some charge).
What is considered to be a crime changes over time as a result of governments changing the law. Any exploration of
crime over a period is therefore fraught with difficulty because any rise/ fall may reflect legal changes, and the views of particular chief constables- i.e. what they decide to pursue most vigorously.
What are victim surveys and what have they found?
Victim surveys are surveys in which people are asked questions regarding crimes they have been a victim of, excluding sex offences due to ethical issues.
Victim surveys overcome the fact that a significant proportion of offences
are never recorded by the police.
The CSEW involves a sample of around 35,000 households per year, and
is widely considered to be the most important source of information about
trends in crime.
The CSEW has consistently found that there is much more crime than is
reported to t he police (although much of that is comparatively trivial),
and that young males have a particularly high chance of being victims of
violence.
However, there are a number of weaknesses of victim surveys including
that they are reliant on victims’ memories; there may be some inaccuracy
in the victims’ selection of crime category; and they omit a range of
crimes, such as corporate crime.
What are self-report studies?
These are surveys in which a selected group or cross-section of the population are asked what offences they have committed.
They are very useful in that they reveal much about the kind of offenders who are not caught or processed by the police- we can find out about the social characteristics and location of ‘hidden offenders’. Do their characteristics differ from those who are
caught?
It is the most useful way to find out about victimless crimes, such as illegal drug use- e.g. annual Global Drug Survey.
However, there may be problems with validity, problems of
representativeness, and problems of relevance- e.g. only trivial criminality may be reported.
Outline different perspectives on criminal statistics.
Positivists take an uncritical approach, viewing statistics as scientific and fair ways of measuring crime: they see statistics as reflecting the social reality.
Feminists believe that crime statistics do not accurately reflect crime against women and that they tend to underestimate the extent of crimes women are the victim of.
Interpretivists reject the accuracy of criminal statistics, claiming it is too simplistic a way in which to study crime. Labelling theory supports this, seeing crime statistics as reflecting who has been labelled as being deviant.
Marxists argue that criminal statistics reflect the inequalities within law enforcement through demonstrating that people of certain groups and ethnicities are more likely to be charged.
