Patterns and trends of crime

Question 1

What does the typical victim appear to be ?

Answer 1

• Working class
• Male
• Young
• Black

Question 2

What are the Patterns and trends relating to social class and offending ?

Answer 2

Police statistics show higher levels of blue collar crime which is a working class type of crime.
Many people who commit theft also are more likely to be imprisoned in comparison to fraud (White collar crime)
Williams : Says working-class factors are more likely in prison population. He thinks this may be as they have been exposed to violence.
Sutherland: Crime is predominantly a lower socio-economic class problem

Question 3

What are the patterns and trends relating to social class and victimisation ?

Answer 3

Young = ‘myth of an equal victim’, says that lower classes are more likely to be the victims of crime
Sutherland = says that crime is higher in low socio-economic classes for victimisation.

Question 4

What are the patterns and trends relating to age and offending ?

Answer 4

• Evidence from police shows that young people are more likely to offends in comparison to adults.
• Young people are responsible for 23% of crime (disproportionate as they only account for 1 in 10 of the population)
• McVie = says that in reality, the link of age and offending isn’t clear cut. If data is banded they it masks the precise data
• Soothill = Peak crime for burglary is 16 or less but for drug dealing it is between 21-25

Question 5

What are the patterns and trends relating to age and victimisation ?

Answer 5

• older people are more likely to fear crime but young people are more likely to become victims of crime,
• Older people have more fear even though less chance however it is more likely for them to get injured during a crime taking place.
• Only recently has data on under 16s been collected ( 12% of them have been victim to crime but 56% of that is violent crime)

Question 6

What are the patterns and trends relating to ethnicity and offending ?

Answer 6

• More people from black and asian communities are stop and searched.
• Ministry of Justice says that this is 7x more likely
• Overall the arrest rates have decreased by 3% but have increased by 5% for black people
• Bowles and Phillips: In the courts a lot of cases where black people are the suspects are dropped. This shows that a lot of black people are initially charged wrongfully.
• Eastern Europe people have the same crime levels as the general population

Question 7

What are the patterns and trends relating to ethnicity and victimisation ?

Answer 7

• CSEW say that Black, Asian, mixed ethnic groups are more likely to be a victim of personal crime
• Racially and religiously aggravated crimes have decreased in the last 5v years
• 2005 evidence suggests that black people are 5 times more likely to be murdered