Crime statistics

Facts- official statistics CSEW: crime survey of England and wales PRC: police reported crime The trend overall for csew is a decrease Increase

Two types of offences there are in britain Indictable (criminal) offense Non indictable (summary) offense Crime which is serious enough to be tried on indictment (a formal charge or accusation of a serious crime) and may attract punishment from imprisonment of more than one year up to life Is a less serious criminal offense with a maximum punishment of 6 months imprisonment, a fine or both

Government agencies involved in law enforcement Many theories of crime are based in part on official statistics provided by In Britain, these statistics consistently show that some groups are more likely to be involved in crime than others The police Courts Government agencies involved in law enforcement Criminal justice system The w/c Members of some ethnic minority groups Young males The above are more likely to commit crimes according to official statistics than The m/c The elderly Females White people

The recording of crimes The use of official statistics would be supported by positivists who claim they are ‘objective social facts’. Which you can find trends and patterns from as they are quantitative data The official statistics allow for comparison between the crimes of different groups and the ability to assess the impact of social and legal policies In Britain, official statistics on crime are published annually. They provide criminologists, the police, the courts and the media with two types of main data: prc and scew However, over time it has become clear that not all crimes have been reported in Britain. This has been called the dark figure of crime

Dark figure of crime Individuals don’t report crimes as they might be afraid they wont be taken seriously, didn’t realise it was a crime, know that the police wont be able to help Eg domestic violence, sex crimes Also police might not report it as they don’t think its serious enough to log

Victim survey –victimisation study Victim surveys asks people which crimes they have been victims of that they have failed to report Help to estimate the extent of the dark figure of crime The studies provide a useful focus on the victims- rather than the perpetrators of crime As these are based on questionnaires- offer more detail/insight Some questionnaires fail to be returned- low representativeness The sensitive nature of topic may lead to high and lower reporting Public perception of crime may skew results- social characteristics of responsibility, recent events etc

Self report studies A03 This is a survey where people are asked what crimes that they have committed which have not been reported to the police They help to reveal more about the dark figure of crime. They show crimes that people may never have been apprehended for, and some may be too trivial for reporting Suffer from validity problems as respondents may over/under exaggerate their answers Provide a more direct measurement of criminal behaviour by going to the source Also provides more insight into deviant actions Such studies may have low respond rates Rely heavily on memory