Measuring Crime Flashcards
Who benefits from measuring crime statistics?
Insurance companies, Governments, Councils, Police and the public
What are the costs of crime?
- Anticipation - taking security measures
- Consequence of crime - mainly falls on victim
- Post crime response expenses - mainly falls on criminal justice system
Why is crime measured?
- Measure the moral health and the quality of life of nations, cities, or regions
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the machinery of social control - policies, programs, legislation
- Estimate the risk of becoming a victim (identifying risk factors)
- Development and testing of criminological theories
What are the two most common methods of measuring crime?
- Police Data
2. Crime Victimisation Surveys
What are the ‘dark figures of crime’?
The amount of unknown or unreported crime
What stages influence what is counted by official statistics?
- Legislators defining certain events to be crime
- Individuals reporting crime to the police
- Police in judging that a crime has been committed
- Police deciding to charge or not charge a person with an offence
- Alleged offender deciding to plead guilty in court
- Jury deciding guilt
- Appeal in court in upholding or denying an appeal
Why are some reasons why not all reported incidents make it into police recorded crime statistics?
- Police may record an incident with multiple victims as a single incident
- Police may not regard the reported event as serious enough to record
- Informal, unofficial action may be taken
- The incident was recorded but not recorded as something other that what the victim thought it should
- Police may not want to pursue the case
Name 3 strengths of police data?
- Provide a useful insight into relative crime trends over time and between areas
- Voluminous data with lots of detail such as: the location, age, sex, ethnicity of the victim and offender
- Data can be used by other organisations or agencies to compare stats as it is an official record
Name 5 limitations of police data?
- Not all crime is detected by police
- Not all crime is reported to police
- Jurisdictional differences in definitions and recording practices
- Recording may not meet research needs (not enough detail)
- Reporting can be influenced by external factors
What are Crime Victimisation Surveys?
- Surveys conducted annually to measure the frequency of crimes that aren’t captured by official statistics
- The gap size between reported and unreported crime
What are 3 strengths of Crime Victimisation Surveys?
- Provides an insight into crimes that aren’t captured by official statistics
- Provides an insight to demographic and contexts of reporting: who reports, who don’t and why
- Independent of policing organisations and uses everyday language and avoids legal terms - people more inclined to report - less intimidating
What are 3 limitations of Crime Victimisation Surveys?
- Only covers a small selection of offences, does not include victimless or hidden crimes
- Age-restricted - not conducted on those under 16
- Relies on memory recall - could be memory failure about when the crime occurred
What can influence and cause variation in survey methodology?
- Number of interview questions and their order
- Interview style e.g. via phone, in person, a questionnaire
- Interviewer characteristics e.g. if the respondent feels comfortable
- Time span of recall
- The level of education of the respondent, the more educated the more likely they will be willing to participate
What affects a persons decision to report crime?
Involves various cost benefit processes including:
- Insurance claims
- Social obligation
- Attitude towards police
- Perceptions of culpability
- Gender differences
- Seriousness
- Victim - Offender relationship
- Victimless crime
- Feelings of embarrassment, fear, ashamed
What are other sources of information in terms of crime statistics?
- Self report offending surveys e.g. have you broken into someones house
- Calls for service data e.g. calling the police
- Arrests - mainly from reoffending
- Random drug tests, RBT’s
- Emergency room data
