Advantages And Disadvantages Of Crime Statistics

Crime measurement and statistics for police departments are very important when it comes to money allotment, staffing needs or termination and it is also used to determine the effectiveness of new laws and programs. There are three tools used to measure major crime in the United States: Uniform Crime Reports, National Crime Victimization Survey and the National Incident Based Reporting System- which is currently being tested to replace the Uniform Crime Reports. Although there different tools used to measure crime, crime rates can be deceiving. Each different tool reports a different type of rate, crime rates, arrest

Measuring crime is based on three main measurements; criminal justice system data, crime experience surveys and other sources called administrative data (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). Firstly, crime first needs to be categorised into types of crime that is classified under the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). Only the main and select few offences are reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in collecting annual reported crimes (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). Through ABS, it collects crime data in different ways such as crime reports, victimisations surveys, administrative data (higher courts, magistrates and policing agendas etc.,) and self-reports (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). Crime reports measure crimes such as homicide, robbery, rape, assault and more but is collected through police jurisdictions (Reid, 2012). The strength of crime reports provides additional information such as arrests, charges, officers assaults and characteristics of homicide victims (Reid, 2012). This helps to measure crime more effectively through gaining descriptions and knowledge of identifying crime and criminal behaviour more accurately (Reid, 2012). Administrative data is often helpful in collating data of sentences and jail sentences but fails to collect the ‘dark figure’ of crime (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). National Crime Victimisation Surveys (NCVS)

Although crime has been around for ages, we only started collecting crime data around the 1930’s. Crime statistics show a lot about a country, state, county, etc. Crime can be linked to the environment, behavior of others, and personal experiences, it all depends on how the person deals with the hand they are dealt. Crime data is collected from three sources, which are uniform crime reports (UCR), national incident based reporting system (NIBRS), and national crime victimization survey (NCVS).

The Extent to Which Sociologists Agree that Official Criminal Statistics Do Not Give an Accurate Picture of the Extent in Terms of Crime

While studying Criminology I have gained insight on different techniques used to determine which individuals commit the most crimes. There are three basic methods to measure criminal behavior. These include: Uniform Reporting of Crime, Self- Report and National Crime Victimization Survey. Uniform Reporting of Crime (URC) is a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort of more than 18,000 voluntarily individuals reporting data on crimes (“Federal Bureau of Investigation”1). Self-report surveys measure crime by distributing questionnaires to a sample of people, asking if they have committed any crimes during a period of time. National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is a national source that samples about 90,000 households in order to uncover unreported crime and describes the relationship between the victims and the offender (“Bureau of Justice Statistics” 1).

The victimization report (VR) breaks each crime into subgroups. Each subgroup shows a better interpretation on which violent crime or other crimes played a higher role in the rates recorded. In table 1 of the VR,

A third threat to validity is the possibility that results are caused by natural fluctuations in crime rates that would occur without any interference from crime prevention strategies. To combat this problem Ditton and Short have compared the crime rates of the areas under surveillance, to other places in the

The Extent to Which Official Crime Statistics Provides a Reliable Estimate of the Amount of Crime Committed in England and Wales

In the 1960’s crime against others appeared to be rising at a steady rate. This increase in violent crime was blamed on the increased permissiveness and lack of self-control associated with 1960’s culture. However, since the 1990’s crime has appeared to be falling, this could arguably be due to the way crime is recorded and measured as there are different sources of data available. Violent crime is categorized as, ‘violence against a person’ (Home Office 2015). However, sexual offenses are not included in this definition. Threats against another without physical violence are also not included and domestic violence is now measured

Also the representativeness is questioned because all crimes cannot be included in a questionnaire as the researcher has to be selective, so as a result some people may have committed a crime, but they can neither report it because of fear of being fined or put in jail nor because it is not included in the questionnaire. This means that the number of crimes in statistics will be decreased, however it will not represent the reality. In addition to this problem, mainly the youth are questioned as the BCS 2007 states that most of the crimes are committed by males aged from 15 to 25 and by females aged from 13 to 19 in England and Wales, therefore the rest of the population is not included and the concept of “white collar” crime is created, which is middle classed people not admitting their crimes, therefore this information cannot be generalized among the population.

In England and Wales, there are two main ways to measure crime, one is the official crime statistic and the other one is the local survey. First of all, we will look at the structure of the official crime statistic, which normally is the published statistic of crime renamed Crime in England and Wales; it involves two parts: the police records and BCS (British Crime Survey) data which was included in 2002. The structure of the official crime statistic is described clearly by Mike Maguire (Mike Maguire, Rod Morgan, and Robert Reiner, 2012) “The publication was divided into two main sections, one covering offences recorded by the police and the other ‘offenders cautioned or found guilty’. Most of the tables on recorded crime

During the Year 12 course last year I attended a Crime Conference, this allowed me to receive first-hand knowledge from figures such as sociological researcher, Craig Ancram, who carried out covert participant observations, and he explained the complications of the methods used to obtain data from within a community linked to crime. We also saw a former police officer talk of the new found openness with reporting domestic crimes, and the ways that prior to such things becoming illegal it was very unlikely that both men and women would ever report such

The survey measures crime by asking members of the public, such as yourself, about their experiences of crime over the last 12 months. In this way the survey records all types of crimes experienced by people, including those crimes that may not have been reported to the police. It is important that they hear from people who have experienced crime and also those who have not experienced any crime in the last 12 months, so that they can show an accurate picture of crime in the

Official crime statistics are obtained from ‘the records kept by the police and other official agencies’ (Moore, Aiken, Chapman 2006, p. 267). These records are gathered and published by the Home Office. According to Moore and Sinclair (1995) for an action to be officially categorised as a crime it should be considered as deviant and reported to the police. Then, the police should respond in the way which will start the legal process.

Crime statistics published by the Home Office provide information regarding crime rates, the trends of which ethnicity, social class, areas in the country that commit the highest rates crime. The method that is used to collate the data. Quantitative methods such as questionnaires and secondary data are used by positivists (who see sociology as a science) which means that the problems with the methods used relate to the problems with crime statistics. There are many problems with official statistics, especially when they are showing trends in crime. The problems however, do not outweigh the beneficial factors that come with using crime statistics.