10.1: Problems in defining crime

Question 1

Briefly explain problems with measuring crime (2 marks)

Answer 1

One way of measuring crime is through police recording of crime, where use is made of crimes recorded on to police computer systems.
A problem with this, however, is that a lot of crimes are never officially recorded by the police, which means that
findings lack validity.
For example, it is estimated that only a small proportion of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police