Measuring crime

Question 1

What are official crime statistics

Answer 1

• Stats produced by police, courts, and prisons

Question 2

What is the CSEW

Answer 2

Crime Survey for England and Wales

Question 3

What are victim surveys

Answer 3

• Involves asking people about which crimes they have been victims of in a given period

Question 4

What is an example of a victim survey

Answer 4

The CSEW

Question 5

What are self-report studies

Answer 5

• Ask people which crimes they themselves have committed

Question 6

What type of data is collected from self-report studies

Answer 6

Qualitative

Question 7

What is police recorded crime

Answer 7

• Statistics that include police recorded crime in England and Wales

Question 8

How is police recorded crime sometimes used

Answer 8

As a definitive measure of crime

Question 9

What is the Dark figure of crime

Answer 9

Unrecorded crimes

Question 10

What are the three ways a crime can be part of the Dark Figure (The three r’s)

Answer 10

• Unrecognised
• Unreported
• Unrecorded

Question 11

What did Moore, Aiken and Chapman say about unrecorded crimes

Answer 11

Crimes go unrecorded because
o	Promotion and relations at work 
o	Classification of the crime
o	Social status of the victim
o	Seriousness of the crime
o	Police discretion

Question 12

What is the two-stage test by the Crown Prosecution Service to take a crime to court

Answer 12

• Likelihood of conviction of the evidence presented

* Is in the public interest to prosecute

Question 13

What is the functionalist view on OCS

Answer 13

Take an uncritical view of statistics – they accept the official statistics. 
Durkheim (1938) measured suicide rates; Merton (1938) said statistics were valid and explained working class crime from them.

New Right
Accept statistics - The underclass do commit more crime

Question 14

What is the Marxist view on OCS

Answer 14

The working class is criminalised and stats are biased towards the ruling class.

White-collar (bourgoisie) crime is rarely prosecuted.

Statistics are used by the ruling class to justify state oppression and keep the working class down – “repressive state apparatus”

Question 15

What is the feminist view on OCS

Answer 15

The stats are patriarchal. For example rape statistics show that legal system favours men.

Similar to Marxists in that law benefits powerful people., who are often men.

Question 16

What is the interactionist view on OCS

Answer 16

Statistics are of little worth (they don’t see them as valid)

Numerical data tells us little; Qualitative data is more useful. Helps us build verstehen (understanding). Things change quickly.

Cicourel (1976) police can be racist and this influences stats. Becker (1963) crime is due to labelling

Question 17

What is the left realist view on OCS

Answer 17

Statistics are flawed. They accept that working classes are more likely to be criminal.

But they want to use more victim surveys etc