1.6

• Validity


  A true and accurate measure. Does it measure what it intends to measure?
• Reliability


  Repeatable and will provide a similar result if done again. A structured scientific method will be able to be repeated. Identifies trends, patterns and comparisons.
• Representativeness


  How possible it is to generalise the results of the findings to the general population. It depends on the sample (who you are researching). A larger sample is more likely to be representative, but does it reflect the main population?
• Ethics in research


  • Safety and well-being of respondents and researchers
  • Informed consent - accepting to be part of the research once you understand the research
  • Confidentiality - your answers not being revealed to others
  • Anonymity - your answers not revealing your identity
  • GDPR - protection of your personal data and not passing it on to other organisations/ individuals without consent
• Data sets are needed because of ethics in research
• Where crime statistics come from

  • Official statistics from police recorded crime
  • Home office statistics from the 43 regional police forces and British transport police
• Official statistics


  • Reliability- systematic collection in the same way year on year
  • Can be compared by time and place
  • Crime prevention strategies can be evaluated and shared
• Official statistics


  • Not all crimes are reported and even if they are they are not recorded due to police discretion
  • Human data can affect the validity
  • Police priorities might mean some crimes are not investigated
• Reasons for under-reporting


  • If an item stolen is low value
  • Fear of not being believed
  • Not being sure if a crime had been committed
  • Victim is not believed
  • Crime is reported but no one wants to press charges (assault)
• Reasons for under-recording


  • Human error
  • Lack of training
  • Events being dealt with a local level informally
  • Reclassifying a crime as a 'crime related event' to massage down the figure and hit targets
• CCTV observation


  • Ethical advantage- researcher isn't in any danger
  • Can track perpetrators
  • Valid- if people don't know they are being recorded they will act as they normally would
• CCTV observation


  • Sometimes the CCTV isn't well seen
  • Only public space therefore only is focused on a few specific crimes
  • Can be very time consuming
• Secondary data


  • Data already collected
  • Relying on someone else to have collated their research properly
• Self-report studies


  • Helpful in uncovering 'victimless' crimes
  • Follows ethics as no names are recorded and no one is put in danger
  • Formal, structured, sociological
• Self-report studies


  • Some may embellish more and some may not want to incriminate themselves
  • Lacking in validity as people don't have to be truthful and there's no way of telling people are lying when on a form
• Covert observation


  • High rates of validity
  • Time consuming
• Personal stories/ memoirs


  • Sometimes facts never known before are revealed
  • People can make it up
• Public records


  • Accurate record of court cases aiding validity
  • Compare sentencing of men/women, ethnicities
• Public records


  • Doesn't tell us about successful criminals
• Personal documents


  • Crimes that weren't reported could be revealed
  • Can be autobiographies, therefore can be embellished or made simpler
• Commercial victimisation survey


  • Fills the gap of other studies that only focus on crimes in people's homes
  • Surveys a range of businesses to give representativeness
• Commercial victimisation survey


  • They may not be aware of all crimes against them eg) online crime
  • Lacks some validity
• Financial conduct authority


  • Fills the gap covered by CSEW (crime survey for England and Wales)
  • Doesn't get information from everyone
• Official statistics allow criminologists to see exactly what crimes are reported to the police, as well as certain details, such as the gender of a criminal, and their ethnicity
• Official statistics only record and report crime, which is where self-reporting studies become useful
• Self-reporting studies allow criminologists to find out the information from crimes that aren't recorded or reported from the perpetrators themselves
• Self-reporting studies have issues as a perpetrator may not want to reveal the crimes they have committed themselves, or make them seem to commit more crimes than they actually have
• Self-reporting studies still help to close a gap in the statistics
• Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW)

  An alternative form of victim survey, asking members about their own experiences of crime in the last 12 months
• Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW)

  • One of the largest social surveys in the UK - 50,000 people interviewed each year
  • Face-to-face interview
  • They can report on their opinions on crime and the CJS too
  • Only people who live in households are covered in the survey - does not cover homeless/care homes/prisons
  • 76% of people are willing to respond (3/4)
  • This data is analysed so that the participants used in the sample are then generalisable
  • To complete the main survey you must be over 16, but there is now a separate survey for 10-15 year olds
  • Around 10% of the participants are children
• The purpose of completing the CSEW is to close the dark figure of crime
• Statistics from the 2019-2021 CSEW period

  • 14% increase in total crime
  • 47% increase in fraud and computer misuse
  • Crime excluding fraud and computer misuse decreased by 14%
  • 18% decrease in theft offences
  • 27% decrease in the number of victims of violent crime
  • Falls in violence where the offender was a stranger by 50%
  • 9% decrease in the number of police recorded offences involving firearms
  • 10% decrease in offences involving knives or sharp instruments
  • Sexual offences had an increase of 12%
  • Rape was 37% of the sexual offences
• Statistics from March 2018 CSEW

  • 7.9% of women (1.3 million) and 4.2% of men (695,000) experienced domestic abuse
  • Women are four times as likely to be abused by a partner than a man
  • Females were recorded to be more likely to experience psychological abuse, whereas men were recorded to be more likely to experience physical abuse
• People don't report to police about 40% of the crimes that they are victims of
• Advantages of CSEW


  • Relies on first-hand victim knowledge so may be more accurate than police recorded data
  • Captures unreported crime
  • Confidential
  • Police can use this information to predict crimes that will go unreported
  • 50,000 people surveyed
• Disadvantages of CSEW


  • Some crimes may still not be reported
  • 24% of people do not respond
  • Doesn't include all types of people
  • People may be unaware they are victims
  • People may exaggerate
  • Time-consuming and expensive
  • Relies on victims memories
  • It does not include every type of crime
• CSEW conducted by trained interviewers who have a set list of questions, so results will be consistent and therefore reliable
• Interviewers' traits may influence responses in the CSEW
• The CSEW uncovers a lot of crime that has not been reported to the police
• The CSEW is a valuable way of uncovering the dark figure of unreported crime