Defining Crime Flashcards
What are the problems in defining crime?
Age
Culture
Historical context
Circumstance
How does age effect defining crime?
The age of criminal responsibility varies over time and across cultures. In the U.K. It currently stands at age 10, but was previously age 8 years. The same act, therefore, committed by people of different ages would be defined differently as a crime or not.
How does culture effect defining crime?
The social norms of what is criminal vary between cultures, making a universal identification of criminal behaviour difficult.
How does historical context effect defining crime?
Even within a culture, the law is continually being updated, rendering acts that were once criminal legal and vice Versa. For example, homosexual acts were illegal in the U.K. Until 1967.
How does circumstance effect defining crime?
For an act to be a crime, the person must be shown to have committed the act and also intended to commit the act. The same behaviour in different circumstances could be criminal or not.
What are the ways of measuring crime?
Official statistics
Victim surveys
Police recording of crime
Offender surveys
How do official statistics measure crime?
Data is gathered from several sources by the office of national statistics on the amount of crime committed in England and Wales. It is published every year to show headline figures and trends in the types of crime recorded
How do victim surveys measure crime?
The crime surveys for England and Wales conducts an annual face to face surveys with around 40000 people of different ages asking about their experiences of specific crimes. This is used to track the total amount of crime and changes in trends of crime.
How does police recording of crime measure crime?
Data is taken from the police computer systems that log reports of crime and is used to measurer the amount of crime committed. It feeds into the office of national statistics.
How does offender surveys measure crime?
The offending crime and justice survey (2006) gathered longitudinal self report data on offending behaviour over a 3 year period. It aims to collect data of otherwise unreported crime.
finish the evaluation for statistical measures: these measures are objective
Due to representing facts. This makes the research high in internal validity and his should be reliable as a result.
finish the evaluation for statistical measures : many crimes are not reported
This leads to a serious underestimation of the amount of crime committed, suggesting this measure is not valid.
finish the evaluation for statistical measures : laws and definitions change over time
It is difficult to say whether crime rates are rising or falling
finish the evaluation of surveys: self report measures
Lack reliability due to social desirability bias. This means the research lacks validity as the participants could be lying on their answers.
finish the evaluation of surveys: they may not even realise or remember that they have been victim of a crime
So there is likely to be an underestimation of the amount of crime committed again meaning that the measure is not valid.
