Defining and Measuring Crime

• What is Crime?

  Any behaviour that is unlawful and punished by the state. Harmful to an individual, group or society.
• What is the influence of culture on crime?

  Criminal behaviour will vary from country to country depending on the laws in those countries.
• 3 ways of measuring crime: (3 S) 


  1. Official Statistics
  2. Victim Surveys
  3. Offender Surveys
• Outline Official Statistics as a way of measuring crime

  • Government produces official crime statistics annually.
  • Based on any incident reported to the police or any discovered an offence.
• Evaluate Official Statistics as a way of measuring crime

  • Only a certain number of crimes make it through the 'crime funnel' and get reported to the police.
  • Stigma of being a victim effects if they make a report - victims may feel police may not take it seriously
  • Walter - only 42% of crimes reported in the British Crime Survey, reported to the police
• Outline Victim Surveys as a way of measuring crime

  • A sample of people used to identify which crimes have been committed against them over a period of time.
  • Random Sampling from the Royal mail.
• Evaluate Victim surveys as a way of measuring crime

  • Provides information about the 'dark figure' of unreported crime.
  • More consistent than official statistics when making comparisons over time.
  • However, some issues with sampling - only 75% of those contacted, take part - final sample is biased.
  • Also the number of crimes reported in a year for any individual, is capped at 5.
• Outline Offender Surveys as a way of measuring crime

  • Questioning offenders
  • Carried out annually
  • Used to find the underlining reasons why people commit crime
• Evaluate Offender Surveys as a way of measuring crime

  • Any self-report method is subject to certain problems such as lack of accuracy in answers
  • People may underplay their criminal involvement and other behaviours.
• What is the top-down approach to Offender profiling

  A crime scene analysis that creates a profile on the likely offender - relies on intuition and beliefs of the profiler
• What is Offender Profiling?

  A method of working out the characteristics of the offender by examining the characteristics of the crime and crime scene.
• What is the bottom-up approach to Offender Profiling?

  Collects details of crime scenes but the data is analysed using statistical techniques (more scientific and logical).
• What are the 2 types of crime?

  Organised crime - a planned crime, offender is socially and sexually competent and has a higher than average intelligence. (Psychopath)

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  Disorganised crime - offender shows little evidence of planning, leaves clues and trends to be socially and sexually incompetent with a lower than average IQ.