Location and Crime

Question 1

Why are cities more likely to have higher rates of crime?

Give at least one example.

Answer 1

At least one from:

• They have a bigger population which means that there is often more opportunity for crime to be committed.
• There is often a bigger divide between the rich and the poor.

Question 2

Complete the following sentence(s):

Official _______ show that recorded crime is not evenly _____ between _____l areas. 1999 Youth Lifestyles Survey revealed a ______ between the type of area lived in and persistent offending. _____ the proportion of men living in inner cities were ________ offenders as those in rural areas. Location studies show a much higher risk of crime against businesses in disadvantaged areas.

Answer 2

• Statistics
• Distributed
• Geographical
• Relationship
• Twice
• Persistent

Question 3

Complete the following sentence:

The British Crime Survey and _____ records of crime show that rural areas compared to urban areas: have ______ rates of all types of crime, have a lower proportion of people with high levels of worry about crime and have lower levels of perceptions by people of high levels of anti-social ______. People in rural areas are not as worried as those in urban areas about the likelihood of crimes such as ________ to occur.

Answer 3

• Police
• Lower
• Behaviour
• Vandalism

Question 4

What are the two main branches of environmental criminology?

Answer 4

• Looking at how and where people live effects their behaviour.
• Examining why offences occur in certain areas e.g. ‘hot spots’.

Question 5

What are the limitations of official crime statistics?

Give at least one example.

Answer 5

At least one from:

• What about the ‘dark figure’ of crime? Unreported and undiscovered crimes.
• Maguire (2002) estimates that only a small percentage of all crime in England and Wales ends in conviction and that theories relating to official statistics must be treated with caution.