Measuring crime

• Pros of police recorded crime figures

  • easy to access
  • always compiled
  • up-to-date
  • standardised, the time between crimes committed and reported are short.
  • inclusive, “whole counts”
  • extensive
  • ethics are not an issue
• Cons of police recorded crime figures

  • do not include unreported crimes
  • do not consider unrecorded crimes, “Dark Figures of Crime”
  • no context
  • pressure on the police to reach crime reduction targets, some crimes downgraded or ‘disappearing’
• Problems with measuring global crime - *

  • the range of activities involved
  • varying laws
  • border issues, hard to be caught
  • threat of terrorism
• Self-report studies

  • questionnaire
  • individuals anonymously report their crimes
  • learn social characteristics of offenders
• OCS

  • reported to the police by victims and the general public
  • recorded by the police
• types of OCS

  • statistics, eg. CSEW (crime survey of England and Wales)
  • self-reports
• pros of OCS

  • inclusive, they cover the whole population
  • in-depth, go back over many years
  • scientific, prestige
  • up to date
  • Easy to access
  • lack ethical problems
• cons of OCS

  • don’t include unreported crimes
  • don’t include unrecorded crime
  • bias, political pressure on police to meet crime reduction targets
• victims surveys

  • face to face interviews
  • use standardised questionnaires about their experiences as victims of crime
  • statistics used are compared with the OCS to work out levels of under-reporting
• pros of victim surveys

  • include the DFOC
  • cover new crime
  • identify social groups who are at risk
  • measure attitudes to the CJS
• cons of victim surveys

  • relies on victims having objective knowledge of the crimes committed against them
  • memory is unreliable due to trauma
• Watts, Bessant and Hil (cons of victim surveys)

  victims identified in crime surveys are the victims that the state officially chooses to recognise
• Marxists (cons of victim surveys)

  some are unaware that they are victims of crime, eg. WCC
• Young and Lea (cons of victim surveys) - realist sociologists

  CSEW surveys tell us very little about the day-to-day experience of living in high crime areas, eg. residents have an increased national average chance of being victims of both property and violent crime
• Pilkington (cons of victim surveys)

  • the CSEW distorts the meaning of the statistics, eg. the CSEW suggests that violent and sexual offences are few in number
  • argues that statistics relating to violent and sexual crime cant be compared to property crime
• Ellington (cons of victim surveys)

  samples used by the CSEW are not representative, eg. the unemployed and homeless
• Kinsey - Merseyside Crime Survey (MCS)

  female fear of crime is justified and women often under-report crime of a sexual nature or that which occurs in the privacy of the home
• self-report studies

  • a standardised list of minor criminal offences
  • the sample group ticks the crimes they have committed
  • responses are treated both confidentially and anonymously
• pros of self-report studies

  • anonymous
  • confidential
  • challenge the validity of OCS
  • longitudinal
• cons of self-report studies

  • validity
  • victims under-report
  • males in particular may exaggerate or over-report their offences to create an impression of “being tough” or conceal their crimes
  • people are unlikely to admit to sensitive issues, eg. domestic violence or racist attacks
  • bias, lack of honesty
  • high drop-out rates due to longitudinal research
  • lack of representativeness, hard to include all crimes
  • only aimed at young people as they are easy to recruit
  • unethical
• patterns and trends in crime

  decrease due to increased surveillance and punishment