Measuring crime

• The ways of measuring crime are:

  • official statistics
  • victimisation
  • Self- report studies
• Official crime statistics are:

  • produced by the home office
  • records of police effectiveness and criminal activity
  • They provide info on crimes to the police
  • Give info on criminals social characteristics
• Crime statistics are used for:

  • compare previous years
  • reveals police efficiency
  • helps police concentrate resources
  • provides the public with information about criminal activity
• Advantages of Official statistics:

  • up to date
  • cover the whole population
  • ethical
• Disadvantages of official statistics:

  • doesn't reflect the whole picture of a crime
  • doesn't include unreported crime
  • laws change overtime
• Trends in crime:

  • Between 1876 and 1930, there was very little change
  • Sharp increase between 1960 - 1990
  • Overall, crime seems to be falling now
• Police statistics:

  • based on records kept of crime
  • show crimes reported and crime solved
  • 80% of police action is relied on public reporting
• Unrecorded crimes:

  • not all crimes are recorded
  • 'dark figure of crime'
  • Paul wiles: 3 things must happen before a crime is reported
  • crime must come to someones attention
  • crime must be reported to the police
  • police must accept that the law has been broken
• Muncie:

  There are reasons why a crime doesn't get reported

  1.Person doesn't know they have been a victim

  2. No clear victim

  3. Considered trivial

  4. Powerless victim

  5. Distrust of the police

  6. Thinks the police won't take them seriously
• Kinsey, Lea and Young:

  • inner-city residents have little faith in the police
  • working class people turn a blind eye
  • fear of reprisal (retaliation) from criminals
  • these are reason for them not to report the crime
• 3 manipulation techniques:

  Coughing = Offender encouraged to admit to a lesser charge to get a reduced sentence

  Cuffing = Crimes which have been reported, and recorded get removed at a later date. Also known as 'no-criming'

  Skewing = Putting resources int the areas with the highest amount of crime or the ones that will make the force look better if they reduce
• James Patrick:

  • said that there was a routine for officers to manipulate crime statistics
  • spent 12 months analysing data from the met and found sexual offences were often 'no-crimed' and burglary was often down-graded
  • He said this manipulation became ingrained into the police force
• 4 main dark figures of crime:

  • within the home
  • white collar crime
  • crimes of the state
  • racial victimisation
• Crimes within the home:

  • feminist researchers
  • e.g domestic violence, abuse of a child, elderly abuse
• White collar crime (dark figures of crime)

  • crimes are usually undetected or prosecuted
  • rarely defined as a crime
  • all white collar crimes effect us directly and indirectly
• Crimes of the state:

  • crimes committed by government
  • e.g: massacres, torture, human right infringements
  • acts are rarely seen as criminal because the government create the laws
• Racial victimisation (dark figures of crime)

  • around 15% of crime against ethnic minorities are racially motivated
  • estimated that less than half of all racially motivated crimes may be reported to the police
• Issues with the dark figure of crime:

  • police force record different amount of crime
  • police force may categorise crimes differently
  • coughing ( lesser sentence for owning up)
  • cuffing (police not reporting crime they don't think they can solve)
• Implications of the official crime stats ?

  • statistics can be considered to be a way that crime is socially constructed
  • they reveal more about the process of reporting crime and collecting
  • interactionalists believe that these statistics just show the labels and stereotypes adopted by the police and courts