Forensic Psychology

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Defining and Measuring Crime

Problems with Defining Crime

Historical Period - some crimes are time bound as attitudes and social norms change, affecting people's behaviour and the law.

Culture - attitudes are different in different cultures, such as strict religious laws.

Politics/legal system - acts of parliament can change law (criminalisation/decriminalisation).

Intent - some crimes are committed with good intent, or are a mistake.

Measuring Crime

Official Statistics - government records of number of crimes reported to and recorded by the police. This allows the government to develop prevention strategies and policing initiatives and resources.

Wolfgang (1971) said that official statistics are used for:

Researching perpetrators of crime

Measure volume of crime

Measure effectiveness of preventative strategies

Detect changes in crime rates

Provide data for policy decisions

Hollin (1992) estimated that official statistics only account for 25% of crime

Farrington and Dowds (1984) investigated why crime rates had increased in Nottinghamshire, finding that the police there were more likely to record theft of £10 or less, which most other counties disregard as too trivial. Therefore the apparent increase in crime was due to police recording more offences, so crime rates may be influences by perceived severity of the offence.

Evaluation

Criticised for for significantly underestimating the extent of crime; so many crimes go unreported (due to humilliation, not wanting trouble, or too much effort) by victims or unrecorded (due to triviality or lack of evidence) by police that only 25% of offences are included in official statistics, with the remaining 75% being called the "dark figure".

Policing priorities can distort figures, some police will record crimes differently to others (Farrington and Dowd).

There is under representation of certain crimes in official statistics (eg corporate crimes).

Figures between official statistics and other measures often don't match up. BCS 2006 showed a 3% increase in crime, whereas the official statistics showed a 2% decrease.

Offender Surveys - individuals volunteer details of their crimes, often targeting likely offenders. Allows people who wouldn't usually get caught and provides a way of measuring victimless crimes (eg drug use, underage drinking).

The Offender Crime and Justice Survey (OCJS) ran from 2003 to 2006 and interviewed 10-25 year olds about antisocial behaviour. As well as measuring self reported offending, it looked at indicators of repeat offending and trends in prevalence of offending.

Wilson (1980) found that the official statistics reported 20% of 10-17 year olds in an area had criminal convictions, 40% reported shoplifting and 67% reported graffiti.

Evaluation

Provides insight into how many people are responsible for certain offences.

Responses can be unreliable, individuals may lie, concealing due to social desirability, or exaggerating for a sense of bravado.

Types of crime (such as theft) are over represented, whereas other offences won't be included, leading to biased results.

Tells us about victimless crimes that aren't usually reported to the police (drug use).

Reveals who commits the crimes and not just the overall figure.

Tend to be longitudinal so trends can be observed.

Focuses on juvenile rather than adult crime.

Perpetrators of serious crimes are more likely to have been detected and convicted, removing them from the sampling frame.