Measuring Crime

Measuring Crime

1. Official Statistics

   • Based on crimes reported to police and recorded in official figures
   • Hollin (1992) suggested that the OCS only accounts for 25% of actual crime
   • 'Dark figure' of crime: offences that are unreported or don't appear in the OCS
   • Reasons why crimes are not reported
     • There is no victim
     • Victim is too afraid
     • Too trivial
     • Can't be bothered/inconvenient
     • Mistrust the police
     • Perpetrator is a friend or family member
   • Reasons why crimes are not recorded
     • Insufficient time
     • Too trivial
     • Not a priority
     • Lack of evidence
     • One of several similar offences
     • Victim withdraws charge
     • Police recording rules
   • Officially recorded crime is affected by what are known as police recording rules
     • Determine whether or not a crime is deemed recordable by authorities
     • Can vary according to priority of government and individual police force

2. Victim Surveys

   • Asking people if they have been victims over a specific time period
   • CSEW carried out roughly every 2 years
   • Interviews with a huge sample
   • Participants are people aged over 16 from randomly selected households
   • In 2006/7 it was based on a sample of over 47,000 people, plus a booster sample of 4,000 people aged between 16 and 24
   • Booster sample was necessary as many of original randomly selected people from this age group had decline
   • Participants were asked if they had been a victim of crime in the last year
   • Interviews were structured, pre-set questions with optional responses
   • Survey showed victim reports were greater than police statistics
   • CSEW also collects information about fear of crime and attitudes to crime
   • Carried a recommendation that the survey should cover under 16s by conducting interviews with 10 to 15 year olds as well
   • CSEW is the largest and most influential of victim surveys
   • There are more specific surveys e.g Commercial Victimisation Survey

3. Problems in defining crime

   • Factors that need to be considered when defining a crime
     • Historical context
       • What is defined as a crime at one point in time might not be considered to be a crime at a different point in time
     • Culture
       • Differences in cultural acceptability
     • Age
       • Important factor in determining whether or not a person is a criminal
     • Specific circumstance
       • E.g a woman stealing food to feed her hungry child we wouldn't want to say is a criminal
       • Deviance approach: classifying behaviour as a crime if it breaches codes of socially acceptable behaviour