Statistics Flashcards
Police criminal records
Offences reported to and recorded by the police
Victim surveys
- Anonymous questionnaires posted to random addresses, asking people about crime.
- Eg. Crime surveys for England and Wales (CSEW)
- Helps to find the real burden of crime by getting crimes that aren’t reported or recorded like common assault or sexual harassment.
Self report studies
- Anonymous questionnaires asking people to admit or answer questions about how many laws they’ve broken.
- Asking people about crime directly means that we can get crime not officially recorded or effectively reported.
Court, prison and police caution records
Allows insights where other sources are less helpful
Issues with victim surveys regarding validity
- Victims can exaggerate for sympathy.
- People can forget or poorly recall minor crimes.
- Under reporting can happen for extreme or embarrassing crimes.
- Victims are often unaware of white-collar crimes against them. (Eg. fraud)
Issues with victim surveys regarding reliability
- Not everyone responds so we get an unrepresentative sample of educated, middle class respondents with lots of time on their hands.
- ‘Victimless crimes’- surveys show most people see minor crime as ‘victimless’, so they don’t report them in victim surveys. (Eg. taking a sprouse’s speeding points)
Issues with self report studies regarding validity
- People want to present the best image of themselves. (Socially desirability bias)
- People sometimes report falsely to help exaggerate findings. (Demand characteristics)
- Responses can change when they’re being given to a stranger (Hawthorne effect)
- Responses rely on memory, which is inaccurate and can be changed by leading questions
Issues with self report studies regarding reliability
People who are bust, disengaged with the ‘system’, shy, uneducated, etc are less likely to take part, reducing the sample’s representativeness.
Changes in reporting, counting and recording of crime
- The media
- Police attitudes and training
- Increased reporting
- Changing norms
- Changing police numbers
- Better equipment (Technology)
- Changes in the law
Functionalist perspective on crime statistics
Believes in social facts and fixed consensus societal structures so they’re always happy to trust and use official statistics. (Eg. Trust police statistics because they’re a pillar of society.)
Right realist/ New right perspective on crime statistics
Believes structures can change but criminals are always ‘bad people’. They’re happy to use statistical methods but want to update them as society changes. (Eg. Use body-cam and CCTV footage over questionnaires because we can’t always trust the police.)
Interactionist (including labelling) perspective on crime statistics
Statistics are useless because C&D are just social construct that can’t be measured with objective or quantitative techniques. They will only accept statistics which help understand stereotypes. (Eg. police arrests by ethnic groups or race.)
Traditional marxists perspective on crime statistics
Statistics are gathered by those in power and used in ways that benefit them. Statistics are therefore biased.
- They’re useful in understanding oppression and inequality but can’t be taken at face value.
- Eg. Using infection rate data to criminalise protesters at the Sarah Everard rally or BLM protests)
Feminist perspective on crime statistics
Don’t trust official statistics because they don’t get good coverage on common crimes by/ against women (eg. domestic violence, fraud, sexual harassment.)
- These issues are often embarrassing or emotionally difficult to report in surveys.
Left realist perspective on crime statistics
Statistics are useful to see general trends and gage public opinion, but they miss key disadvantaged groups like ethnic minorities and lower- SES communities. (Eg. questions are in advanced language they don’t understand, or they don’t trust the authorities enough to take part)
