Measuring Crime

Measuring Crime

1. POLICE RECORDED CRIME FIGURES

   • These statistics include all police recorded crime in England and Wales
     • Supplied by all 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales plus the British Transport Police
     • Sometimes used as a definite measure of the amount of crime which has taken place, but only include crime which the police has become aware of and which the police then record
   • Easy to access and have already been complied
     • up-to-date and standardised
       • They cover the whole population and go back many years, so trends and patterns can be identifed
         • Provides the whole count rather than estimations
   • They do not include undetected or unreported crimes
     • Do not include unrecorded crime
       • Do not provide a complete picture of each crime
         • Accuracy may vary between areas

2. THE DARK FIGURE OF CRIMES

   • This is a term used for all unrecorded crimes
     • Hard to estimate how large this figure is, because it includes crime that isn't even known about

3. POLICE DISCRETION

   • One problem with police recorded crime figures is that they will be affected by the discretion and decisions made by the police.
     • Some police officers may be corrupt or have their own reasons to misrecord individual crimes
     • The police could also be influenced by the stereotype of the typical criminal

4. WHAT DO THE SOCIOLOGISTS THINK OF THE POLICE RECORDED STATISTICS?

   • FUNCTIONALISTS
     • believe in the existence of social facts and measuring social behaviour scientifically
     • Would trust quantitative data produced by statistics and see it is as reliable and representing all of us
     • Believe in a value consesus
     • Most functionalists and subcultural explanations use the 'typical criminal' presented in police recorded statistics
   • THE NEW RIGHT & RIGHT REALISTS
     • Accept the official picture of the typical criminal presented by the PRF. since they too believe that laws are made for the benefit of society and applied equally
     • Focus on explaining criminality amongst the most deprived sections of society, referring to as the 'underclass' since stats suggest that most crime is committed by such people
   • LEFT REALISTS
     • Recognise the police figures are not perfect, but they should not be dismissed, because they are about real crime
       • They suggest that PRF should be supplementary by other methods, such as victim surveys
   • SOME FEMINISTS
     • Accept the official picture that females commit less crime than males and try to explain why
     • They look at the high levels of social control applied to females
   • MARXISTS
     • See the PRF as a tool used to control the working class and justify their control and oppression
     • Police stats are used to scare us and justify more policing
   • INTERACTIONISTS
     • Agree to an extend with Marxists
     • They focus on the social construction of crime stats, paying particular attention to police labelling and the consequences of interactions between certain powerless groups in society, police and courts
   • RADICAL CRIMINOLOGISTS
     • combien aspects of Marxism and interactionism in their approach to understanding crime
     • They tend to focus on the power of the police to label for political reasons
     • Such ideas have also been used to challenge the over-representation of certain ethnic minorities
   • SOME FEMINISTS
     • Focus on the way that female offenders are treated differently by the police and in the courts
     • Also argue that male crime is against women is underrepresented in the police figures
       • So they do not challenge the idea of the typical criminal being male, but do challenge the accuracy of the stats