Measuring crime Flashcards
What are the 3 main ways of measuring crime ?
- official statistics
- victimisation
- Self- report studies
What are official crime statistics ?
- produced by the home office
- records of police effectiveness and criminal activity
- They provide info on crimes to the police
- Give info on criminals social characteristics
What are crime statistics used for ?
- compare previous years
- reveals police efficiency
- helps police concentrate resources
- provides the public with information about criminal activity
What are some advantages of official statistics ?
- up to date
- cover the whole population
- ethical
What are some disadvantages of official statistics ?
- doesn’t reflect the whole picture of a crime
- doesn’t include unreported crime
- laws change overtime
What are some trends in crime ?
- Between 1876 and 1930, there was very little change
- Sharp increase between 1960 - 1990
- Overall, crime seems to be falling now
What are police statistics ?
- based on records kept of crime
-show crimes reported and crime solved - 80% of police action is relied on public reporting
What are unrecorded crimes ?
- not all crimes are recorded
- ‘dark figure of crime’
- Paul wiles: 3 things must happen before a crime is reported
- crime must come to someones attention
- crime must be reported to the police
- police must accept that the law has been broken
What does Muncie say about measuring crime ?
There are reasons why a crime doesn’t get reported
1.Person doesn’t know they have been a victim
2. No clear victim
3. Considered trivial
4. Powerless victim
5. Distrust of the police
6. Thinks the police won’t take them seriously
What do Kinsey, Lea and Young say about measuring crime ?
- inner-city residents have little faith in the police
- working class people turn a blind eye
- fear of reprisal (retaliation) from criminals
- these are reason for them not to report the crime
What are the 3 manipulation techniques ?
Coughing = Offender encouraged to admit to a lesser charge to get a reduced sentence
Cuffing = Crimes which have been reported, and recorded get removed at a later date. Also known as ‘no-criming’
Skewing = Putting resources int the areas with the highest amount of crime or the ones that will make the force look better if they reduce
What did James Patrick say about Measuring crime ?
- said that there was a routine for officers to manipulate crime statistics
- spent 12 months analysing data from the met and found sexual offences were often ‘no-crimed’ and burglary was often down-graded
He said this manipulation became ingrained into the police force
What are the 4 main dark figures of crime ?
- within the home
- white collar crime
- crimes of the state
- racial victimisation
What are crimes within the home ?
- feminist researchers
- e.g domestic violence, abuse of a child, elderly abuse
What is white collar crime ( dark figures of crime)
- crimes are usually undetected or prosecuted
- rarely defined as a crime
- all white collar crimes effect us directly and indirectly
What are crimes of the state (dark figures of crime)
- crimes committed by government
- e.g: massacres, torture, human right infringements
- acts are rarely seen as criminal because the government create the laws
What are racial victimisation crimes ( dark figures of crime)
- around 15% of crime against ethnic minorities are racially motivated
- estimated that less than half of all racially motivated crimes may be reported to the police
What are some issues with the dark figure of crime ?
- police force record different amount of crime
- police force may categorise crimes differently
- coughing ( lesser sentence for owning up)
- cuffing (police not reporting crime they don’t think they can solve)
What are the implications of the official crime stats?
- statistics can be considered to be a way that crime is socially constructed
- they reveal more about the process of reporting crime and collecting
- interactionalists believe that these statistics just show the labels and stereotypes adopted by the police and courts
What are victim surveys ?
- alternative way of measuring crime
- surveying people about crimes they have been a victim of
- includes crimes which haven’t been reported by the police
What do victim survey’s do ?
- They measure the accuracy of police recorder crime figures
- The crime survey for England and wales is one of the largest social surveys conducted in Britain
What is the CSEW ?
- The crime survey for England and Wales
- involves face-to-face structured interviews
- since 1982
- happens annually
- kids included from the age of 10 for the first time in 2009
- sample of 35,000 adults and 3,000 kids
- 2017 response rate was 73%
- try to reflect the profile of general population
What are the findings of the CSEW ?
And what do they show ?
- much higher than official statistics - up to 4 times more
- they collect information about victim, circumstances and offender behaviour
- helps estimate the amount of domestic violence, stalking and sexual victimisation
What are some limitations of the CSEW ?
- don’t include victimless crime
- children victims not included
- based on victim memory
- sample may not be representative
- 25% of data is missed (because only 75% respond to the interview)
What was the Islington crime study ?
- conducted in inner city London
- focus on geographical locations and impact on victim
- in the first survey, 33% are affected by serious crime
- Majority thought that crime was a major issue
- qualitative = found detail, 25% of people avoid the dark
- shows fear of crime is real and rational
What did Young say about victim survey’s ?
- Well trained interviews helped in the Islington study found a higher rate of victims
- due to not reporting sexual offences
What did Dobash and Dobash ?
- researched domestic violence
- interviewed women at the refuge
- qualitative research
- not aiming to compete with official statistics
- understand impact on victims life
What was an evaluative study of victim studies ?
- Coleman and Moynihan
- the sample may not be representative
- needs accurate remembering
- assumes everyone defines crimes the same
What are some theories use and opinions on victim survey’s ?
Left realists:
Lea - used data from survey’s, thought immediate strategies were needed to reduce crime as the poorest suffered the most from this.
Feminists:
Dobash + Dobash: used victim survey’s to uncover rates of domestic violence. Rates were much higher towards women than stated in the official crime statistics.
What are self-report studies ?
- Quantitative data
- anonymous data where offenders admit crime
- not considered official data
- questionnaires
What do self-report studies reveal about official statistics ?
- Official statistics say that the male:female crime ratio is 6:1
- And working class : middle class is 6:1
- Self-report survey’s reveal its 3:2 in both cases
What did Campbell say about self-report studies ?
- conducted self-report studies on mainly young females and some young males
- Found levels of crime and deviance are much closer than official statistics suggest
- Also overemphasis working class males involvement in crime
What does Farrington say about the Cambridge and Edinburgh studies on self-report studies ?
