Analyzing The Article I Will Be Critiquing For Soci 247, Is One Published By Sky News

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)

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

(Vandiver, 2008). In my opinion, the research goal was explained pretty vaguely which could be the reason only nine respondents volunteered to participate in the interviews. “The cover letter for a mailed questionnaire and the introductory statement read by interviewers in telephone or in- person interviews are critical to the survey’s success”. (Bachman & Schutt, 2004 p.213). The mailed letter in this case lacked the characteristics of credibility, personalization, interest, and responsibility. After experiencing much negative stigma from their offenses, the respondent most likely would not have agreed to take part in the research without being informed of some sense of confidentiality they would receive. Personalization of the letter to each offender and credibility of the researcher would have possibly struck interest in the respondent and in return they may be inclined to participate. The reason for research could have been a bit more detailed and could have focused on the fact that the researcher wants to know the effects on the offender after being registered, putting the offenders best interest at hand may have persuaded them to take part in the research. ‘Without a personalized approach, the rate of response will be lower, and answers will be less thoughtful and potentially less valid’.

Also the report will comment on the problems that are associated with recorded crime figures, including the limitations of recorded crime figures and then how they can be linked back to the statistics from the Lowville Community. Another potential reason that this report will discuss is the dark figure of crime other concepts such as cuffing. This report will additionally look at how media representations affect how crime is seen and what this makes the residents think also. Finally this report will touch upon the crime filter that exists within every constabulary and community. With all this evidence and arguments this report will eventually explain why the crime figures reported by the Lowville Constabulary do not appear to reflect the experiences of crime that the elderly residents have experienced in their community.

For vulnerable people within society, there are risks that their perceptions of crime within the community will be affected by what they see in the media. They only see what is sensationally reported and not be able to rationalise police statistics when they are released. The overall effects are that vulnerable people that are victims will continue to not to feel safe within their community, as they are only exposed to one view. This causes them to feel less likely to report crimes to police.

Weatherburn, Matka and Land (1996) stated that the media has created such a difference between the real levels of crimes, violent crimes in general and what the community perceive them to be due to the manipulation of the media upon the nature of crime. For example, in Australia the statistics for homicide have remained at similar and decreasing results for the past couple of decades (Chappell, 2008), whereas the public believe there has been a rise in violent crimes within this time period. Study done from the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that there were numerous differences between media reported crime and the results of the real crimes. The information above is showing that crimes in Australia such as homicides, abductions and robbery have been misrepresented by the media for the public to believe these crimes are at a higher rate than they are actually

Even once data has been collected, there are a number of threats to the validity of the results. As exemplified in Skinns’ research carried out in Doncaster town centre in 1998, displacement can be a common problem. Results showed a 16% decrease in crime rates in Doncaster town centre. However there was evidence of geographical displacement to the surrounding towns that showed a 31% increase in crime rates. This therefore affects the validity of the figures for Doncaster because taking both figures into account the overall reduction in crime is only 6% (Skinns, 1998). It is difficult to measure displacement because the surrounding areas where crime has supposedly been displaced to may show these results because they have not yet been introduced to CCTV cameras. A further threat to validity is the possibility of other changes to the area under surveillance. In Doncaster for instance there were changes in the policing styles and there was introduction of out of town shopping resulting in fewer people in Doncaster town centre. As a result, reductions in crime rate could have been influenced by the amount of people actually present in the area (Coleman & Norris, 2000).

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

During this essay, I will be discussing recorded crime statistics and victimisation surveys as they are our primary techniques of measuring levels and trends of crime. After briefly explaining what is meant by these terms, I will seek to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in order to question the extent to which they are reliable resources that provide us with accurate information.

An observational study of 1951 crimes committed by 537 offenders “detected” by the U.K police force. After randomly assigning one known linked crime to a random crime, the time and distance between the random pairs was compared to the time and distance between the linked crimes. After running several tests, it was clear that there was a significant difference in the geographical location and time between linked crimes and unlinked crimes of various crime types and categories. However, since due to the nature of the study, the applications for this information is very limited in its current form and needs to be elaborated

This classification of crime was necessary to help eliminate under reporting due to different names for the same crime across jurisdictions. While a few changes were made the consistency of the crimes data was collected on allowed crimes trends across decades to be compared with relative

Data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) from 2013/2014 have been used. The CSEW is a face-to-face survey asking households about their perception and experience of crime in the 12 months preceding the interview. The information at my disposal are part of a special unrestricted access teaching dataset produced by the UK Data Archive. Out of a sample of 35,371 households chosen in England and Wales for the actual survey, I had access to a 25% sample of 8,843 households. Representative of households were chosen through the Postcode Address File which excludes aggregative accommodation such as residential halls and prisons.

I do not believe self-reports are necessarily the most accurate or liable methods for gauging criminal behavior, but I do believe that they are still an essential aspect for recording delinquent criminality. As with any of the crime data collection methods explained within the book, they all have respective strengths and weaknesses. Self-report surveys, include crimes that went unreported, juvenile substance abuse, and an offender's’ personal characteristics and information. As valuable as these statistics may be, to obtain such information we are forced to “rely on the honesty of offenders and omit offenders who refuse or are unable, as consequences of incarceration, to participate (and who therefore may be the most delinquent)” (Siegel Pg.

The article (Extract 1: The Moon, The Open University, 2017a) also claims that Dumfries and Galloway, and Aberdeenshire have become crime hotspots, showing an increase in crime rates between 2015 and 2016, 19% and 10% respectively. Conversely, the article claims that Edinburgh and Glasgow have become safer places to live, showing a decrease in crime rates, 11% and 9% respectively. The article has based these claims on data in Chart 3 (p. 13, Scottish Government, 2016) in the report, which accurately represents these figures. To examine the validity of these claims, it is important to consider Chart 5 (p. 15, Scottish Government, 2016), showing recorded crimes per 10,000 population in each

Incorporating the key concept of sourcing information on crime as a community member wasn’t overly challenging. However, wording the questions and designing them so that there was no bias or favor towards one answer was difficult at first. Finding enough ways to develop questions whilst providing answers to the survey without fear of repetition to achieve a response for the research questions with quantitative data was a challenge. The levels of measurement of the variable that was used for this survey is ordinal. An ordinal scale has no natural origin and there is no real interval between ranks on the scale, the ordinal scale is used to “represent preferences and judgements”, ordinal scales commonly appear discreet instead of continuous (Basilevsky