Victim Surveys Flashcards
Since when has this survey been carried out?
Since 1982
What is the age of people involved?
Only those over 18 were originally included, and then those over 16. Since 2009, children aged 10-15 are also included, usually as part of their parent’s survey
How are respondents contacted? What are they asked?
Respondents are interviewed in their own homes by trained interviewers, using a structured questionnaire on a laptop computer. Respondents are asked about property crimes (such as burglary) and personal crimes (such as theft from the person or violence)
What do the results of the CSEW show?
The results tend to show that crime is much higher than the police figures suggest, for some crimes up to 4 times higher. In order to organise incident, the survey collects detailed information about the victims of crime, the circumstances in which incidents occur and the behaviour of offenders in committing crimes.
How has it been successful?
It has been successful at developing special measures to estimate the extent of domestic violence, stalking and sexual victimisation, which are probably the least-reported to the police but among the most serious of crimes in their impact on victims.
What are the limitations to the CSEW?
- Victimless crimes, or crimes where the ‘victim’ is a large corporation, such as shoplifting, will not appear.
- Only people over 16 have been asked in the past, so crimes with child victims were not picked up.
- Th CSEW only surveys a sample, so overall trends are an estimate which may not be representative, especially for rare crimes.
- The response rate is around 75%, missing potentially important data.
What did Hough and Mayhew (1985) say about the CSEW?
‘Survey and police statistics combined enable the outlines of crime to be mapped far better than police statistics alone’
What other victim surveys are there?
The Islington Crime Survey (Jones and Young 1986) was first conducted by the Centre of Criminology in London. A second survey was done in 1990.
What other victims are research that wouldn’t be through police records? (Dobash and Dobash 1979)
They researched domesic violence (1979) involved in-depth interviews with women at a refuge, measuring the impact of crime on their lives who usually go unnoticed.
How did Young criticise victim surveys, even though he carried them out himself?
Despite being involved in the Islington Crime Survey himself, he argues that a dark figure is also present in victim surveys. The accuracy of victim surveys relies on the memory and honesty of the victim. Some people may get the timescale wrong, and people may not tell the truth for various reasons, including shame and guilt. People’s threshold of ‘crime’ may also differ.
How does response rate impact results found from victim surveys?
If the response rate is low; this affects the representativeness of the final sample and generalising results. Those who do not respond could be victims of sexual abuse or from particular social groups. People who have not been victims of crime may not respond, as they may feel it is not relevant to them, which could result in an overestimation of crime.
