Statistics And Crime Statistics On Crime

In this paper, the main objective will be to outline the importance of statistics as a method to analyze data in the field of Criminal Justice. Also, this paper will focus on ways in which data is obtained keeping in mind the appropriate statistics to use with the collected data, and how to interpret the findings. In addition, it will review the causes of crimes, the rate at which these crimes occur, predictive outcomes and preventative measure to deal with criminals.

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).

(Australian Institute of Criminology, 2009, p. 6) The media’s representation of a rapidly increasing violent crime rate is not supported by statistics which reflect that while the crime rate is rising, the rate is steady and it is believed that this number could even be fluctuated by the increase of victims reporting these types of crime to the police. According to the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes 2007, 74% of the respondents had quite a lot/a great deal of confidence in the police to solve crime. (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2007 p. 16-17) Although the statistics show the general trend of violent criminal offences is static, a significant proportion of our population still has the perception that our crime rates are increasing (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2010) due to media influence. Another way the media misrepresents Australia’s crime rate is by selectively reporting violent crimes whilst under reporting other offences, which are more prevalent in society.

These offences are categorized into 3 different crime categories which are crimes towards a person, towards property, or towards society, which in year 2012 there were 64.8% property crimes (causing harm to property/a location), 23.2% crimes against a person (causing harm to a person), and 12% crimes against society( not necessarily hurting the society but putting in danger people’s lives and the surroundings of the community). Group A handles all the major crimes and keeps closer track of the statistics depending on each offense. The report takes note of every single data provided for them, if no data was available for the situation being reported the system puts in a probable answer, for better results. (Investigation F. B., National Based Reporting System,

Evidence suggests that the meaning attached to criminal acts influence the reporting, recording and legal consequences. For example, quantitative evidence or data demonstrates a substantial increase in crime until 1995 and an apparent slight decrease since then (Maquire, 1997, p.158). Qualitative evidence questions this by suggesting that crime is greatly under-reported for reasons such as the feeling that the crime was not serious enough. In contradiction, Maguire (1997) suggests that there is an increased reporting of crimes, for example, through having greater access to a telephone. In relation to conviction, Eitzen (1986, p.427) demonstrates that white-collar crime and street crime carry different legal penalties, thus illustrating the different meanings they hold.

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.

This puts into doubt the efficiency and effectiveness of the official crimes statistics. Crimes are unreported for various reasons; some of the reasons why committed towards certain minority groups are unreported is because of the distrust and faith in the police force, language barriers and fear of repercussions from the offender. Certain minority groups include, ethnic people, people with disability, woman, youth, homeless and indigenous. The Crime Victim Survey’s uncovers the Dark Figure of crime and victimisation, it acknowledges the victim and it also explains about the limitations and strengths of recording and reporting crimes. For a crime to be recorded there are three stages that must be delivered. The first is that a person must identify that a crime has been committed, the offender who is committing the crime must been seen by another person. Secondly, the police or others to whom the crime has been reported must accept that the action has been done against the law, or that law has been broken in the act. Thirdly, the crime must be reported to the relevant authorities either by the one who has observed the crime being committed or the person who committed it. If one fails then the crime is unrecognized, although other members of the public may have noticed or heard about a crime and could be

Crime rates are shared on each major offense; however, “crime rates are often skewed because reports of crimes are based on volume of a particular crime” (Schmallager, 2011). For instance, if more crimes are committed in larceny theft, these rates overshadow more serious crimes such as murder, due to the low amount of murders committed. Moreover, crimes those are unreported, though in recent years the number of unreported crimes is lower than in past years, along with crimes unreported by local officials give a false sense of overall crimes

Crime is measured through statistics in England and Wales through the crime survey (CSEW)and police recorded crime data. (Ons.gov.uk, 2017) The crime survey is conducted on victims of crime aged 16 years and over. However, from 2009 victims aged between 10 and 15 years have participated in a separate survey and this allows to see trends of crime, which can help policy makers to implement crime prevention in targeted areas (Crimesurvey.co.uk, 2017). The CSEW has been complying the survey for over 30 years now and covers crimes that are not reported to police, from a sizeable nationwide sample. Therefore, shows consistent data of continuing trends in crime (Crimesurvey.co.uk, 2017). One example, that the crime

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

Official crime statistics are measured mainly in one ways which is police recorded crime and it has its own strengths and weaknesses. Unofficial measurements, just like official crime statistics, also have their own strengths and weaknesses. Unofficial measurements can be seen through two major data sources which are social science and private agency records. The social sciences can be seen through victimization surveys and through self-report studies. The legal definition of crime is: ‘A violation of a law in which there is injury to the public or a member of the public and a term in jail or prison, and/or a fine as possible penalties.’ (TheFreeDictionary.com, 2015). Crime statistics are used by the police (to monitor their efficiency), Politicians (to formulate policies), Criminologists (to understand crime that is taking place) and the General public (who will mainly go to the media to find out their information, but they still have access to the crime reports). This essay will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both official crime statistics and unofficial crime statistics.

The collection of crime data in the United States is carried out through different approaches including Uniform Crime Reports and the National Incident-Based Reporting System, which also act as the two primary sources of crime data for crime reporting. The data obtained from these sources are used for research and documentation of crime status at the county, state, and national levels. Notably, the National Incident-Based Reporting System emerged as an advancement of the conventional summary of Uniform Crime Reports that were used to track crime in the country. In addition, the Congress uses data from these sources together with those from the National Crime Victimization Survey to guide policy

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.

The importance given to certain crimes in the daily newspapers and other media sources shows us proof to the fact that crime is a topic that has the public’s interest and is a focus of their worries (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001). It goes on to discuss the fact that crime as reported on by the media increases the public’s levels of fears and that there is little or no correlation to actual levels of violent crime in our society today.