Flashcards
measuring crime
Cards in this deck (12)
- 1police crime figures advantagesadvantages
-official statistics
-easy to access
-can identity trends
-show social background of criminals
they were taken as accurate for many years however socilogists began questioning this. - 2police crime figures disadvantages-only report crimes known to the police (not all crime is reported to the police) why?
-people don't have faith in the police
-victim is intimidated by the perpretrator
- too embarrassed to report eg. rape
-see the crime against them as trivial - 3disadvantages continuedpolice don't record all crime reported to them - whether an indicident is worth reporting or not
-not all offences court as crime eg. what is crime changes so pattern isn't always correct - 4victim surveysinclude non reported crimes to the police
anonymous survey of indviduals asking for details of crimes commited against them
include figures for unreported crimes
use large sample sizes
high response rate - 5example of a victim surveybritish crime survey
interviews a sample of the population
asks them about experiences if being a victim of crime
answers are confidential and cannot be passed on to the police - 6what do victim surveys and police records reveal?the same broad trends
- 7problems with victim surveyeven the largest victime surveys only access and a small sample of population
doesn't survey all crime eg. crime against businesses
no-under 16s - 8jock young on vicitm surveysquestioned the validity as everyones opinion on what is criminal is different.
so some indicents would be mentioned by one person but not another
-some people are more willing to talk about their experience than others
-good, however dont give the true, full picture of crime - 9self report studiesask people if they have committed a crime
less widely used that victim surveys
anonymous and representative of the population (like victim surveys)
-people may not want to reveal crime as they are scared others will find out - 10official statistics show fear of crime is risingfar more people fear becoming a victim
the media contributes to this by having alarmist headlines about crimes- creating panic and fear in the population - 11home office statistical bulletin revealedindividuals who read tabloid newspapers were twice as likely to be worried about crime compared to those who didn't
- 12fletcher and allenfear of crime depends on locality, health, age, disorder or whether a person has previously been affected by crime
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- A-Level Sociology Flashcards on measuring crime, created by tilly.daughtry on 23/06/2016.
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