Measuring crime

Question 1

How does counting rules effect the official crime rate?

Answer 1

Categorising and counting crimes are constantly changing
- Gov continually introduces new laws or policies on what counts as a crime

Question 2

How many police forces produce official crime stats?

Answer 2

43 polices forces under control of the Home Office

Question 3

Define the dark figure of crime statistics..

Answer 3

• The difference between the Official crime rate and real crime rate referred to as the dark side of crime
• Sociologists argue the OCR seriously underestimates the true rate of crime

🔵 British crime survey suggest true level of crime is at least twice the OCR

Question 4

Why is there a dark figure of crime? (2)

Answer 4

Due to policing and procedures
- Victim underreported

Question 5

What is meant by policing and procedure effecting dark figure of crime?

Answer 5

• Many significant decisions are made by police at various stages of crime reporting process, this selectivity affects the recorded crime figures

Question 6

What are 4 reasons for selectivity in policing and procedures?

Answer 6

• Police judge credibility- unrecorded if lacks foundation, vague or contradictory
• Police decide it’s better treated outside formal system (juvenile crime) - first offence
• Police may be unwilling to invest if it seems a hopeless investigation where it seems unlikely those responsible for crime will be brought to justice
  -Officers have personal commitments and priorities, response to crime may be regarded as trivial

Question 7

What 5 aspects display police as filters, in under- recording crime?

Answer 7

• Offence may be regarded as too trivial
• Social status of victim- important ppl have a favoured response to poor lower class
• Classifying crimes- minor assaults not investigated
  -Each officer has discretion to press charges or let individual off
• Promotions and relation to work- Officers want to impress seniors by not appearing too keen (more work)

🔵Moore, Aiken and Chapman- See police as filters, only recording some crimes reported to them

Question 8

define cuffing of crime?

Answer 8

The dishonest practice of not recording crime ( Spanish practices)

🔵 Suggested the fall in crime in 1990s was manipulated by police cuffing

Question 9

3 reasons for under reporting of crimes?

Answer 9

• Victimless crimes not reported - drug-taking, smuggling, prostitution
• Humiliation felt by victim in reporting - rape, domestic violence
  -Corporate and white collar crime hard to detect thus unreported

🔵 British crime survey-44% victims felt incident wasn’t serious enough to report
- 22% didn’t report as they felt police wouldn’t be interested

Question 10

How are criminal statistics a social construction?

Answer 10

They are the product of social processes. Involving not only the offenders but the reporting and behaviour of police (unreliable)

🔵 BCS- Only 31% of crimes are reported and recorded

Question 11

2 strengths of official statistics?

Answer 11

• Study of OS show how they are socially constructed
• Reveals social processes, labelling and how social administration of justice favours some groups

Question 12

Functionalist view on statistics?

Answer 12

• Share view of positivists and accept crime statistics uncritically
• Sub- cultural theory - view crime is a young, w/c, male

Question 13

Marxist view on statistics?

Answer 13

Recognise the systematic bias in favour of the powerful in the application of the law. The higher ppl are in social system- less likely to be arrested/charged/found guilty

Question 14

Interactionist view on statistics

Answer 14

Sees crime statistics as largely useless and a distortion of reality
- Statistics are a social construction and say nothing about real level of crime
-

Question 15

Left realist view on statistics?

Answer 15

Like functionalist, accepting OS have value and shouldn’t be rejected. Accept statistical view of typical offenders - young, male, black, w/c

Question 16

Feminist view on statistics?

Answer 16

Argue crime statistics underplay the extent of females as victims and as criminals - personal attacks, domestic violence

Question 17

What 2 techniques help understand the true rate of crime better?

Answer 17

-Self-report studies
- Victimisation studies

Question 18

Define Victimisation studies?

Answer 18

-Asking a sample of public whether they have been victims of crime over preceding 12 months- which crimes, did they report it, did the police record them

🔵 Islington Crime Survey
🔵 British crime survey

Question 19

define Self report surveys?

Answer 19

Use of interviews or questionnaires to collect info and ask people to indicate the number of crimes they have committed over a given period of time

Question 20

What is the british crime survey!?

Answer 20

One of the largest social surveys, informing Home office policy. Measures the amount of crime in England and wales, asking ppl about crimes they have experienced in the last year

Question 21

4 advantages of British crime survey?

Answer 21

-reporting crimes that aren’t reported, gov would otherwise have no information on these crimes
- Can estimate the extent of under-reported
- Can identify those most at risk of different types of crimes
- Identify public attitudes to crime and criminal justice system

Question 22

what are 7 disadvantages of BCS?

Answer 22

BCS limited of types of crime and types of persons info is retrieved.
Many omissions = inaccuracies
- Survey based on households( non house-holders excluded)
- Corporate crimes excluded
- Victimless crimes excluded
- Crimes against under 16s excluded
- Under-reporting of personal attack, domestic violence and sexual crimes
- Rely on memory- incorrect/biased
- people put crimes into wrong categories

Question 23

Strength of self report studies?

Answer 23

Important to get a better picture of some crimes like drug-use

• Campbell gave self report study to young females and found they had almost as high a crime rate as males

Question 24

3 Weaknesses of self report studies..

Answer 24

Steven box- argues self report studies suffer issues of validity, representativeness and relevance.
- Validity- respondent can forget, play down or exaggerate extent of criminal activity
- Representativeness- Most studies on young people, lacking professional or managerial adults
- Relevance - most crimes reported are trivial

Question 25

4 Reasons for rise in crime..

Answer 25

• More state action- Policing gets better, more crimes detected
• More laws/ legislation on statute book, more possible crimes
• More victims due increased affluence(money) - more things to steals. Opportunities arise so do crimes
• People are more sensitive to reporting crimes physical and sexual violence to the police

Question 26

Describe the official crime rate for the past 100 years

Answer 26

• Rose steadily for the past 100 years and peaked in the mid-1990s