Measuring Crime Flashcards
How do we measure crime?
-In order to measure crime, we need to define it.
-There isn’t really such a thing as an objectively defined ‘crime’, instead crime is socially and legally constructed.
-Certain behaviours or actions can be proscribed as criminal offenses but:
–What if no one finds out?
–What if no one reports them?
–What if the authorities fail to act upon them once reported?
-The harder it is to define something, the harder it is to measure it. Hence, crime is very difficult to measure.
What are the two main approaches to measure crime?
Official (police) statistics and victimisation surveys
What are official statistics?
-Crime statistics started to be collected in Britain in the 19th Century (e.g. sentencing statistics).
-Data from police and courts (including criminal statistics, sentencing statistics, and prison and probation statistics).
What are the problems with official statistics?
-only those offences brought to the attention of the police
-only those incidents deemed to be crime by the police
-Changes in methods of reporting distort longitudinal comparisons.
-They do not measure crime but the level police business.
-Unable to account for ‘the dark figure of crime’ (crimes that are never reported or are never discovered which puts into doubt the effectiveness and efficiency of the official crimes data).
-Only ‘notifiable’ offences are included (not ‘summary offences’ e.g. speeding), and offenses recorded by British Transport Police are not included.
–Ways crime is counted and police practices and priorities change.
Official stats tend to tell us very little about the context of crime, or the relative risks of victimization
What are the two sources of ‘bias’ in crime statistics?
–the inclination of the public to report crime
–the practice of the police in recording it
What is the grey figure of crime?
*‘grey figure’ (Bottomley and Pease, 1986): the disparity between estimates of what members of the public say they report to the police and the number of crimes actually recorded.
Why might crime not be reported to the police?
–Victim might think it is too trivial.
–Victim might not know it was a crime.
–Victim might not trust police.
–Victim might be embarrassed, or might have compromised themselves.
–Victim might be scared.
–Victim might prefer to deal with it outside of the CJs.
Why might the police not record crime?
–They may not believe the person reporting it
–They might not find enough evidence
–Victim might refuse to press charges
–Police might feel it’s been dealt with already
–‘Cuffing’- not recording to avoid (paper)work
What are victimisation surveys?
-Victimization surveys offer a chance to capture some of this data.
-They seek a representative sample of the population and ask a series of questions about their experience of victimization- in the past year.
-These tend to offer more of a insight into the ‘dark figure of crime’, and often differ markedly from official crime statistics.
-Emerged in the 1970s to try to uncover ‘dark figure of crime’.
-Asks participants to report whether they have been victims of crime.
–Household surveys
–Fear of crime
–Victimisation
Why are victim surveys considered better than official statistics?
-Attempt to get a more accurate picture of crime.
-Captures wider range of incidents than those recorded by the police.
-The CSEW surveys a sample of the population and extrapolates about the prevalence of crime in society.
-Capture incidents not reported to police
-Capture incidents reported, but not recorded by police
-Victim-Centric Data. Doesn’t rely on a police officers understanding of events.
What are problems with victims surveys?
-they may depend on an unrepresentative sample of the population
-they depend upon victims defining crime, which can be highly variable
What are Hope’s (2005, 49-50) critiques of victimisation surveys?
Hope (2005: 49-50) identifies seven factors that may affect what respondents say to crime surveys:
-Knowledge of Incidents: one person per household- might not know of other people’s experience
-Not Telling: lots of potential reasons (e.g. embarrassment)
-Memory Decay: people forget
-Telescoping: serious events seem more recent than they actually were (so reported in wrong year)
-Education: educational level impacts ability to participate in complex surveys
-Multiple & Serial Incidents: surveys divide events up, when they might be part of a larger pattern
-Interview Conditions: interviewer, time of day, paper or computer etc. all factors that can influence interview outcome
What are some limits of victim surveys?
-Some crimes not captured (e.g. victimless crimes- drug sale/use; hidden crimes)
-Excludes those in hospital, care homes, prison, student halls of residence
-Issues with sampling (under/overrepresentation)
-Problems of respondent accuracy
-Crime recorded as ‘discrete events’. Some crimes (e.g. domestic violence, racial harassment) are sometimes better understood as ongoing, ceaseless events that merge over time.
-Participants may feel inhibited/embarrassed talking about certain crimes (e.g. sexual assault). More recently computer aided self reporting has been used to account for this.
What do trends in crime show us?
-Perennial debates about whether crime is rising or falling (these can be hugely significant politically).
-We need to be careful not to take crime data at face value.
-In the 20th Century crime rates rose, but so too did the population, and the number of police.
-Methods and categories for recording crime are constantly changing and in some ways improving.
-The nature and character of crime itself is also changing.
–Mass car ownership meant car theft, and dangerous driving
–The internet has greatly expanded all manner of online crimes.
-It is therefore important to understand crime in context, and focus on kinds of crime, as opposed to looking at crime as a single category.
What is the justice gap?
-A very high attrition rate is also referred to a ‘justice gap’.
-The justice gap: “…the difference between the number of crimes which are recorded and the number which result in their perpetrator being brought to justice” (Justice Gap Taskforce)
