Interpretivist Methods

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Created by
Sarah

Cards (6)

  • Interpretivists favour victim / self report surveys - they ask the victim / offender about the crimes they've experienced. This includes the Crime survey of England and Wales and the Islington Crime Survey which was a study of residents‘ criminal victimisation and views of policing was based on door-to-door interviews with over 2000 households in Islington. CSEW found crime is 4x higher than official statistics say.
  • Victim Survey Method
    The CSEW asked the public about property and personal crime, it includes children from 10 and the sample consists of 35, 000 adults 3,000 children per year. The Islington Crime Survey was carried out by Jones, MacLean and Young using questionnaires of a sample from London, they found that a third of all households had experienced crime in the preceding year.
  • Self Report Studies
    These surveys ask people about the crimes they've committed, focusing on young people & certain types of crime :they're often longitudinal. The Cambridge study by Farrington followed 411 boys in London aged 8-32. The Edinburgh study of Youth Transition & Crime studied 4,300 children from Edinburgh. These surveys show that patterns of crime aren't consistent with police recorded data and the gender and class differences weren't as great as official statistics say.
  • Feminists would welcome the self-reported measures as there is a gender bias in police reported crime statistics, which represent men as more powerful and dominant while suggesting women are weak and submissive as victims. Surveys present a more honest picture of crime committed by women and men, which is more in line with the equality a feminist argues for.
  • Left Realists want to explore the causes of crime within society to try and eliminate them, so surveys present more insight into the social backgrounds of criminals and f why someone is more likely to be a victim of crime. This information will help inform strategies and policies to reform society and reduce crime.
  • Interactionists believe that crime is socially constructed so they will see these surveys as a way to challenge the media and police stereotypes of the typical criminal.