Correlation Between Crime And Crime

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)

Richard Rosenfeld takes note to the rising crime statistics and relationship between the police and public, but also notes “It may also have to do with local factors specific to a particular city,”(Schuppe).

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

​The National Crime Victimization Survey has its strengths which include ‘estimating the total amount of annual crimes that are not reported, in addition to, the crimes that are reported to the police. The NCVS provide more information on crimes that the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). The survey is done in the comfort of one’s home where the individual are more comfortable reporting the incident that occurred as opposed to entering a police department to report a crime or a potential crime. According to the textbook, the NCVS help people to understand why crimes are not reported to police and whether the type and nature of the criminal event influences whether the police will ever know it occurred. In some

The official statistics are particularly useful in that they have been collected since 1857 and so provide us with an excellent historical overview of changing trends over time. They also give us a completely accurate view of the way that the criminal justice system processes offenders through arrests, trials and punishments. However, official statistics cannot be taken simply at their face value. They only show crimes which are reported to and recorded by official agencies such as the police. They account for only those crimes which are recognised as such by victims and those detected by the police. Sociologists have argued that there exists a ‘dark figure’ of unrecorded crime. This may be due to social agencies ignoring crimes committed by the ruling class such as white-collar and corporate crime and their views and stereotypes that they have against certain individuals, such as the working-class and ethnic minorities. Arguably, another reason why police recorded may be seem as inaccurate is due to the increased problem of reporting issues. There is evidence that a number of individuals choose not to report a crime on the basis that they have little faith in social agencies or that they feel that the crime may not be serious enough. Positivists favour the official statistics as they believe that they are functional for society, whereas interactionists and Marxists go against the police the statistics as they argue that they are bias. In this essay, I will discuss the

Measuring crime helps criminal justice agencies to reflect on the effectiveness of policies in existence and correctly target resources. Crime statistics are therefore central to solving crime in England and Wales. In order for crime to be tackled effectively, it is vital that it is measured accurately. There are two sources of crime statistics published annually in the UK namely police recorded crime and the Crime Survey of England and Wales. According to the Crime Survey of England and Wales, in total there were 7.1 million incidents of crime in 2013-2014. Although there has been an 11% reduction in crime, several categories of crime such as sexual offences, fraud and public order offences are up from the previous year. In comparison, latest figures from police recorded crime shows no overall change from the previous year, with 3.7 million offences recorded in the year ending March 2014. Whilst Left Realists argue that crime statistics are an accurate indicator of the state of crime in society, the disparities between the sources of crime statistics suggest that crime statistics provide an inaccurate measurement of crime in the UK. Marxists believe that crime statistics are flawed and manipulated by the government in an attempt to deceive the public. Research calculated by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary supports this view as it revealed that more than 800,000 offences are left off the official crime figure in England and Wales each year. It is clear that

The article I will be critiquing for SOCI 247, is one published by Sky news back in April 2014. As the title explains, the published title expresses crime has fallen to its lowest in 33 years within England and Wales. I will be looking in great depth to identify what Sky news mean by crime and whether they are measuring this as overall crime or whether it is certain aspects of crimes which have been affected by this decrease. I will also refer to different media articles which may have similar aspects and compare statistics to what is relevant within the public at the time of when there are popular crimes.

Statistics are culminated from courts and then are the basis of the recorded number of convictions, however these are often criticised

These particular areas tend to be inner-city, with a high population of ethnic minorities, poverty and crime (Lynn and Elliot, 2000) . Thus not only does the sample and the data it acquires become less representative of the population as a whole, it in turn over represents particular groups of people, and the types of crimes committed; which in turn gives across bias ideologies of criminal groups, criminal areas and the level of crime. As exemplified by Tony Blair who stated gun crime was a problem within the black community (Wintour and Dodd, 2007), these crime statics can give across an ideological bias of the relationship between a particular crime and a particular group. Arguably, higher levels of police are distributed in these areas which in turn creates a cyclical effect whereby ideological biases fuels higher levels of policing, which in turn increases levels of offending in statistics, as described by Sharp and Budd (2005), which consequently fuels the ideological biases as demonstrated by Tony Blair.

Treadwell (2013) openly admits that the notion of crime is complicated and contested. However, it is agreed that criminology is a multidisciplinary subject which is interested in the concept of crime and its impact and role in society. In its attempts to understand crime it is influenced by theories of philosophy, psychology and law (amongst others). Treadwell (2013) comes to describe crime as a malleable and constantly evolving concept however he acknowledges that there are massive variances in the way that crime is conceptualized (based on geographical differences but also time periods). Behaviours which previously have been labelled as criminal have been decriminalized where as certain behaviours which were not criminal previously have now been labelled as criminal. It is a constantly evolving concept. There are various perspectives of crime, including the

Firstly, recorded crime statistics are collated through the collection of data by law enforcement agencies, such as the police in England and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in America. It focuses on the crime that is reported by the public and then what is chosen to be recorded by the police. During the mid-late 19th century, these statistics formed the basis of information about crime, however, although they still provide raw data for publications such as the Offenders Index, they are now viewed critically. This is because, according to Mayhew and Hough (1988), the recorded crime statistics are “adequate as a measure of police workload, but because of unreported and unrecorded crime – deficient as an index of crime”.

However, as mentioned earlier, Reiner’s main argument holds validity only to a certain extent because of the quality of the evidence that he presented. For example, the statistics that Reiner examined were from the 1990s and considering that this book was published in 2016, Reiner could have obtained more recent statistics especially since his main argument was strongly directed towards “modern” society. Moreover, since he argued that criminal statistics are already “notoriously riddled with pitfalls” (Reiner, 106), he should not have used statistical data from the 1990s, for the sake of preserving his argument and because the data are conceivably limited in their validity. Comparatively, the Office of National Statistics reported that the latest figures of crime for the year-end 2017 indicated that “levels of crime have continued to fall compared with the previous year” with the exception of certain types of offences that did not show falls as compared to others (Office for National Statistics, 2018). However, if Reiner’s argument is taken into account, that the statistics represent a small percentage of the overall population and that half of the number of offences committed are not recorded, then perhaps the “dark figures of crime” that go unreported should have been explained by him in further detail.

The drug-crime link is incredibly complex and can not be simply summarised as a straightforward relationship between the two. The prevalence of drug use and the prevalence of crime is hard to measure and there is also a possibility that other factors influence both drug use and crime (Hammersley, 2008).

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.

Official crime statistics follow a positivist approach, assuming that crime is a static fact to observe and measure. Looking at the statistics in isolation, there is a gradual decrease in the overall crime rate (Police National Headquarters, 2014). Trends for specific offences fluctuate, as violent crimes such as sexual assaults are increasing, while property offences are decreasing. However, this data has various limits. Official statistics only account for crime that is detected and recorded. Crimes incorrectly filtered out of the system or miscoded fall into the grey figure (Bradley & Walters, 2011), distorting specific crime trends. Crucially, because these statistics only reflect when a person is captured, the dark figure – all crime experienced by victims, but hidden from police (MacDonald, 2002) - is unaccounted for.