Patterns of Crime Statistics

Question 1

Official Crime Statistics

Answer 1

They tell us two main things:
> Total numbers of crime known to the police and court records, produced on a yearly basis.
> Social characteristics of offenders (e.g. ethnicity, gender etc.)
General things the OCS tells us:
> most offenders are young (16-24 years old)
> most offenders are male (80%)
> most offenders come from poor home backgrounds
> most offenders lack educational qualifications.

Question 2

Problems with Official Crime Statistics : issues with reporting crime

Answer 2

> people dont always report crimes that are “petty” for example minor theft
people report crimes when there is advantage for them, e.g. 98% of car thefts due to insurance claim.
some crimes are private and to be settled privately.
victim may not be able to report the crime, they could be dead?

Question 3

Problems with Official Crime Statistics: issues with recording crime

Answer 3

• only about 40% of crimes reported are actually recorded as a crime, some officers may decide not to investigate as it is not worth - creating dark/hidden figure of unreported crime.
• 1997 home office decided offences where value of damage of £20 had to be recorded, therefore over night there was a 7% increase in crime - causing artificial increase in crime.
• counting crimes is problematic - a thief steals from 12 different people in the same house, this counts as 12 different crimes
• the police have to decide what category the crime falls into - was the crime assault with intent to rob or just assault?

Question 4

The Crime Survey

Answer 4

Began in 1982, completed every year with data compared to police data.
A representative sample of 46,000 over 16s are used.
> main aim of the survey is to examine crime in England and Wales in an independent way from police statistics
> It asks people if they have been a victim of crime in the previous year, whether they reported it and whether police recorded it.
> it allows researchers to begin tapping into the dark/hidden figure of crime.

Question 5

Problems/limitations with victim survey

Answer 5

• many crimes are not included in the crime survey due to it being a household survey - for example fraud and corporate crimes are not counted.
• people can only report this to the the survey if they know they are actually a victim of crime, some don’t even realise.
• the crime survey does not account for crimes committed against people under the age of 10, OCS does.

Question 6

Self report studies

Answer 6

they ask a cross-section of the population what offences they have committed during the previous year
respondents are either interviewed or are given a self-completed questionnaire
positives:
> useful in that they provide information about the social characteristics of offenders.
> can shed light on what motivates a person to commit crime. they help tap into the dark/hidden figure of crime.

Question 7

Problems with Self Report Studies

Answer 7

> validity - respondents may lie or exaggerate or simply be mistaken when giving information.
representativeness - it is hard to access professional crimes - so they get children and students to represent date, which does not represent everyone.