Measuring Crime Flashcards
What is the normative view of C&D
Society is based on consensus about which acts need to be legally controlled
(Functionalist, Right Realists, Subcultural)
What is the relativistic view of C&D
Society contains diverse and conflicting norms. C&D reflects the views of these with the power to control the laws.
(Marxist, Interactionist, Interpretivist)
What do OCS Police Records show about age of crime?
50% crime is committed by young people - mostly burglary, street robbery, violence, and shoplifting.
What do OCS Police Records show about gender of crime?
80% of recorded crime is by males
Females tend to be convicted of theft, especially shoplifting
What do OCS Police Records show about EMs?
Overrepresentation of ethnic minorities
Which areas are OCS Police Records biased towards?
Class bias towards working class Bias towards urban areas
What do Functionalists think of OCS?
They are valid social facts (eg Durkheim’s suicide study)
What do Marxists think of OCS?
They serve an ideological purpose
What do Interactionists think of OCS?
They are social constructions - media influence, negotiated justice
What do Feminists think of OCS?
They reflect patriarchal ideology
What do Left Realists think of OCS?
They can be used alongside other measures, they do reflect real people’s concerns
Which % of crimes are brought to police attention by the public?
90%
- Left Realists argue this means OCS reflect real people’s concerns
What does Maguire estimate for every 100 crimes?
For every 100 crimes:
47 reported
27 recorded
5 cleared up
What is an issue for OCS?
Counting rules on laws have changes, laws have changed, social attitudes and thus policing differ - lowers consistency and reliability, makes patterns and trends difficult
What do some sociologists say about the OCS?
It negatively labels some groups - ethical issues
What are the two parts of the dark figure of crime?
Unreported crime (revealed by British Crime Survey, Islington Crime Survey, and Feminist Victim Surveys) Unrecorded crime - eg coughing, cuffing, unreliable complainer, too trivial
Which % of reported crime is recorded according to Maguire
The BCS reveals only 60% reported crime is recorded
What does Pilkington say about OCS?
They say more about public reporting than about real rates of crime (90% is brought to police attention by public)
What may police priorities do?
Affect recording, may differ across areas and due to media concerns/government crackdowns (Cohen - media panic, deviancy amplification)
What does plea bargaining do?
Mean that crimes are recorded as more minor - especially in rape trials
What do Simmons and Dodd say?
Only 44% crime is reported to the police
What did Cicourel’s phenomenological study find?
Police held stereotypical assumptions which impact upon which crime is recorded
What did Phillips and Bowling find?
Oppressive policing in EM communities may artificially inflate crime statistics in those areas
What did Cohen theorise?
The police are sensitised to particular crimes due to media moral panics, inflated crime statistics
What did Reiner (Marxist) theorise?
Marxist view - police are a repressive status apparatus used to control the w/c
What did Croall (Marxist) suggest?
Occupational and corporate crimes are often not dealt with by the police, affecting OCS
What did Dobash and Dobash’s victim survey suggest?
Crimes against women are underrecorded, police treatment of female victims is one cause of this
What has the ONS recently acknowledged?
The weaknesses in police recorded crime, the police have been subject to scrutiny over recording practises
What is a positive reflection on OCS?
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.
Name two other Governmental measures of crime
British Crime Survey/CSEW
Offending Crime and Justice Survey (OCJS)
What is the sample size of the CSEW?
Sample size of 40,000
What did the CSEW find about crime recording?
2007 - over half of crimes were not recorded by police
How was the CSEW carried out?
Structured interviews in peoples homes, quantitative data, used computer assisted interviews for sensitive topics
What is a Left Realist criticism of the CSEW?
The use of a national sample ignores uneven crime distribution/risk of distribution
How was the Islington Crime Survey (ICS) carried out?
Left Realists Lea and Young
Semi-structured interviews, mostly quantitative data, local survey, sample size 2,000
What did the ICS find?
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
What did Reinhartz say about structured positivist research methods?
They are ‘research as rape’, reflecting patriarchal views and restrictions. It is important to have rapport
What did Dobash and Dobash’s study find? (Feminist Victim Survey)
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
What did Walklate’s study find? (Feminist Victim Survey)
Female victims of DV often cannot leave their partners and blame themselves
What did Carol Smart say?
Feminist- urged a transgressive approach to studying women as victims (secondary victimisation, plea bargaining is unfair to victims)
What is an example of Feminist Victim Surveys influencing policy changes?
Baroness Stern’s 2010 Review into CJS
What did Oakley say about Feminist Victim Surveys?
Urged Feminist researchers to use quantitative studies to be taken more seriously
What was the Offending Crime and Justice Survey (OCJS)?
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
What did the OCJS find?
Found less class differences in offending, whites were more criminal on average than blacks
What are two criticisms by sociologists of the OCJS?
Junger-Tas: samples are biased due to lower response rates
Marsh - low validity due to lying and exaggeration
Which different self-report studies conflict?
OCJS found less class differences in offending - as did the Youths Lifestyle Survey Farrington and West found more working-class criminals
Why are interpretivists critical of self-report studies
Quantitative data cannot explore meanings
What is an issue with exploring crime in self report studies?
Cannot include all crimes due to confidentiality
What do self report studies show?
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
Self report studies are problematic for which theories?
Theories which link social class/poverty/inequality and crime eg Left Realism
Self report studies support which theories?
Marxism and Interactionism
What did the Islington Crime Survey (L and Y) find?
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
What is an issue with self report studies?
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
What is the peak age for known female vs male offending?
Female - 15
Male - 18
Which % of crimes are committed by young people?
50%
Which proportion of prisoners are African-Caribbean?
1/10 male and 1/5 female - yet only 2.2% general population
Who noted the working class bias in the prison population?
Reiner
