Measuring Crime Flashcards

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1
Q

What is the normative view of C&D

A

Society is based on consensus about which acts need to be legally controlled
(Functionalist, Right Realists, Subcultural)

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2
Q

What is the relativistic view of C&D

A

Society contains diverse and conflicting norms. C&D reflects the views of these with the power to control the laws.
(Marxist, Interactionist, Interpretivist)

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3
Q

What do OCS Police Records show about age of crime?

A

50% crime is committed by young people - mostly burglary, street robbery, violence, and shoplifting.

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4
Q

What do OCS Police Records show about gender of crime?

A

80% of recorded crime is by males

Females tend to be convicted of theft, especially shoplifting

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5
Q

What do OCS Police Records show about EMs?

A

Overrepresentation of ethnic minorities

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6
Q

Which areas are OCS Police Records biased towards?

A
Class bias towards working class
Bias towards urban areas
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7
Q

What do Functionalists think of OCS?

A

They are valid social facts (eg Durkheim’s suicide study)

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8
Q

What do Marxists think of OCS?

A

They serve an ideological purpose

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9
Q

What do Interactionists think of OCS?

A

They are social constructions - media influence, negotiated justice

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10
Q

What do Feminists think of OCS?

A

They reflect patriarchal ideology

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11
Q

What do Left Realists think of OCS?

A

They can be used alongside other measures, they do reflect real people’s concerns

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12
Q

Which % of crimes are brought to police attention by the public?

A

90%

- Left Realists argue this means OCS reflect real people’s concerns

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13
Q

What does Maguire estimate for every 100 crimes?

A

For every 100 crimes:
47 reported
27 recorded
5 cleared up

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14
Q

What is an issue for OCS?

A

Counting rules on laws have changes, laws have changed, social attitudes and thus policing differ - lowers consistency and reliability, makes patterns and trends difficult

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15
Q

What do some sociologists say about the OCS?

A

It negatively labels some groups - ethical issues

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16
Q

What are the two parts of the dark figure of crime?

A
Unreported crime (revealed by British Crime Survey, Islington Crime Survey, and Feminist Victim Surveys)
Unrecorded crime - eg coughing, cuffing, unreliable complainer, too trivial
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17
Q

Which % of reported crime is recorded according to Maguire

A

The BCS reveals only 60% reported crime is recorded

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18
Q

What does Pilkington say about OCS?

A

They say more about public reporting than about real rates of crime (90% is brought to police attention by public)

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19
Q

What may police priorities do?

A

Affect recording, may differ across areas and due to media concerns/government crackdowns (Cohen - media panic, deviancy amplification)

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20
Q

What does plea bargaining do?

A

Mean that crimes are recorded as more minor - especially in rape trials

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21
Q

What do Simmons and Dodd say?

A

Only 44% crime is reported to the police

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22
Q

What did Cicourel’s phenomenological study find?

A

Police held stereotypical assumptions which impact upon which crime is recorded

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23
Q

What did Phillips and Bowling find?

A

Oppressive policing in EM communities may artificially inflate crime statistics in those areas

24
Q

What did Cohen theorise?

A

The police are sensitised to particular crimes due to media moral panics, inflated crime statistics

25
Q

What did Reiner (Marxist) theorise?

A

Marxist view - police are a repressive status apparatus used to control the w/c

26
Q

What did Croall (Marxist) suggest?

A

Occupational and corporate crimes are often not dealt with by the police, affecting OCS

27
Q

What did Dobash and Dobash’s victim survey suggest?

A

Crimes against women are underrecorded, police treatment of female victims is one cause of this

28
Q

What has the ONS recently acknowledged?

A

The weaknesses in police recorded crime, the police have been subject to scrutiny over recording practises

29
Q

What is a positive reflection on OCS?

A

Recently the gap between police recorded crime and CSEW/BCS (Crime Survey for England and Wales) is now CLOSING showing an increase in police recording quality
Currently trying to improve reporting of fraud, cybercrime and victimless crime.

30
Q

Name two other Governmental measures of crime

A

British Crime Survey/CSEW

Offending Crime and Justice Survey (OCJS)

31
Q

What is the sample size of the CSEW?

A

Sample size of 40,000

32
Q

What did the CSEW find about crime recording?

A

2007 - over half of crimes were not recorded by police

33
Q

How was the CSEW carried out?

A

Structured interviews in peoples homes, quantitative data, used computer assisted interviews for sensitive topics

34
Q

What is a Left Realist criticism of the CSEW?

A

The use of a national sample ignores uneven crime distribution/risk of distribution

35
Q

How was the Islington Crime Survey (ICS) carried out?

A

Left Realists Lea and Young

Semi-structured interviews, mostly quantitative data, local survey, sample size 2,000

36
Q

What did the ICS find?

A

Women, youth and EMS have the highest fear of crime and risk of victimisation; groups most often victimised are the lowest trust in police; 1/3 of all houses in Islington had been effected by crime in the last year; crime was unevenly distributed, women have 14x higher risk of assault than average

37
Q

What did Reinhartz say about structured positivist research methods?

A

They are ‘research as rape’, reflecting patriarchal views and restrictions. It is important to have rapport

38
Q

What did Dobash and Dobash’s study find? (Feminist Victim Survey)

A

Focused soley on domestic violence, found an average of 30 assaults happened before reporting; women expected and accepted violence, men saw it as their right to discipline wives

39
Q

What did Walklate’s study find? (Feminist Victim Survey)

A

Female victims of DV often cannot leave their partners and blame themselves

40
Q

What did Carol Smart say?

A

Feminist- urged a transgressive approach to studying women as victims (secondary victimisation, plea bargaining is unfair to victims)

41
Q

What is an example of Feminist Victim Surveys influencing policy changes?

A

Baroness Stern’s 2010 Review into CJS

42
Q

What did Oakley say about Feminist Victim Surveys?

A

Urged Feminist researchers to use quantitative studies to be taken more seriously

43
Q

What was the Offending Crime and Justice Survey (OCJS)?

A

Longitudinal self report study by Home Office 2003-2006
1st sample 12,000, later samples 6,000
Used trained interviewers and computer assisted interviews
Closed questions asking a sample about their offending behaviours

44
Q

What did the OCJS find?

A

Found less class differences in offending, whites were more criminal on average than blacks

45
Q

What are two criticisms by sociologists of the OCJS?

A

Junger-Tas: samples are biased due to lower response rates

Marsh - low validity due to lying and exaggeration

46
Q

Which different self-report studies conflict?

A
OCJS found less class differences in offending - as did the Youths Lifestyle Survey
Farrington and West found more working-class criminals
47
Q

Why are interpretivists critical of self-report studies

A

Quantitative data cannot explore meanings

48
Q

What is an issue with exploring crime in self report studies?

A

Cannot include all crimes due to confidentiality

49
Q

What do self report studies show?

A

OCJS- little to no correlation between social class and delinquency
Graham and Bowling - only a slight difference between Black and White offending rates
Campbell - low difference between male and female offending

50
Q

Self report studies are problematic for which theories?

A

Theories which link social class/poverty/inequality and crime eg Left Realism

51
Q

Self report studies support which theories?

A

Marxism and Interactionism

52
Q

What did the Islington Crime Survey (L and Y) find?

A

Current policing is ineffective due to low trust from the community, to improve minimal and consensus policing should be used with a focus on underreported areas.
Found high risk of victimisation (esp women, EMs and youth) and low crime clear up rate and low trust of police

53
Q

What is an issue with self report studies?

A

Over/underreporting
Mainly issued to young people - underestimates white collar/corporate crime
Responses from individuals with a criminal record are much lower than those without

54
Q

What is the peak age for known female vs male offending?

A

Female - 15

Male - 18

55
Q

Which % of crimes are committed by young people?

A

50%

56
Q

Which proportion of prisoners are African-Caribbean?

A

1/10 male and 1/5 female - yet only 2.2% general population

57
Q

Who noted the working class bias in the prison population?

A

Reiner