Victim surveys
20 January 2021 10:45
- Alternative to measuring crime.
- Likely to include crime that has not been reported to police
- Cast a lot of doubt on the accuracy of police recorded crime figures.
- E.G. Crime Survey for Eng & Wales CSEW. -
The Crime Survey for England and Wales. CSEW
- Carried out by the British Market Research Bureau on behalf of home office.
- Involves face-to-face structured interviews
- Nationally representative sample of around 35,000 adults & 3000 children per year. [0.0065% of the population]
- Used to be every 2 years, now done every year
- Structured questionnaire
- Tends to show crime is much higher than the police figures suggest, for some crimes up to 4 times higher.
- Collects extensive information about the victims of crime.
- Has been successful at developing special measures to estimate the extent of domestic violence, stalking and sexual victimisation,
- Limitations of the csew
- Only those over 16 asked - meaning child victims were not picked up like abuse & neglect -
- Victimless crime = 'victim' part of large corporation like shoplifting or fare evasion will not appear [theft of a survey]
- The surveys are only a sample, response rate is 75% - missing potential data.
Activity Comparing the police recorded crime statistics & the CSEW
1. The csew are more valid as it shows crime is much more higher than what police figures typically suggest. Sometimes up to 4 times higher.
2. 𝐶𝑆𝐸𝑊 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑎 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 35,000 𝑎𝑑𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 3000 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛 𝑝
. Pr - very board data as they provide data from whole courts where as cs estimate representatives from the sample
3. Crime recorded by the CSEW include - domestic violence, stalking and sexual victimisation. These crimes may not be in the police recorded
crime statistics. - child abuse
4. Crimes such as drug dealing, arson, child abduction, murder, and modern slavery are crimes which may be in the police recorded crime
statistics but not in the CSEW.
5. Police recorded crime statistics is the most useful measure of crime because it reports serious crimes and gathers the statistics, this
enables people to analyse over the data and enforce laws and rules which could prevent them from being stopped.
6. Crimes such as crimes that occurs at school goes unreported by either PRCS and CSEW because school officials attempt to handle the
situation on their own instead of contacting law enforcements. This also goes for sexual assault, fraud victims
reccrime-
offence-ref
Self-report Studies
- Asking people which crimes they themselves have committed.
- Self-report studies on large-scale samples of adults
- List of minor criminal offences that is usually five to large samples of young people who are asked to tick the ones they have committed.
- Qualitative
- The Jack-roller (Shaw, 1966) - series of unstructured interviews to build up a 'life-history' of a criminal
- Gives an insight into criminality ^ , so its more favoured by interpretivist sociologists
- Campbell study on teenage girls - found levels of crime and deviance admitted to by females and males were much closer than the police
recorded figures tend to suggest.
- Boys may exaggerate or over-report their offences to create an impression of 'being tough' or conceal their crimes
- Longitudinal - can follow the same group of people over the course of several years
- E.G. ^ --> Cambridge study - by Farrington et al - followed criminal careers of 411 south London boys - 8 to 32 age
- Issues affecting the usefulness of self-report studies
- Validity
- Self- reports - how far do they produce a true picture of the number of offences committed?
- Truthfulness & accuracy
- May conceal offending or make false claims
- Validity - compared against recorded arrests or convictions as they contain their own flaws.
- Use official records to evaluate honesty
- E.g. - west & farrington - 18 age - 94% convicted boys admitted they had been convicted - 2% of unconvinced - claimed to have been
convicted.
- ^- older people & females - concerned to present a façade of respectability - young males who often offend more are more truthful.
- Attrition (participation & drop-out rates in studies)
- Difficult to find participants & and commit more offences = commit most offences
- High attrition rate survey = likely to miss number of offenders & under-estimate the true number of offences.
20 January 2021 10:45
- Alternative to measuring crime.
- Likely to include crime that has not been reported to police
- Cast a lot of doubt on the accuracy of police recorded crime figures.
- E.G. Crime Survey for Eng & Wales CSEW. -
The Crime Survey for England and Wales. CSEW
- Carried out by the British Market Research Bureau on behalf of home office.
- Involves face-to-face structured interviews
- Nationally representative sample of around 35,000 adults & 3000 children per year. [0.0065% of the population]
- Used to be every 2 years, now done every year
- Structured questionnaire
- Tends to show crime is much higher than the police figures suggest, for some crimes up to 4 times higher.
- Collects extensive information about the victims of crime.
- Has been successful at developing special measures to estimate the extent of domestic violence, stalking and sexual victimisation,
- Limitations of the csew
- Only those over 16 asked - meaning child victims were not picked up like abuse & neglect -
- Victimless crime = 'victim' part of large corporation like shoplifting or fare evasion will not appear [theft of a survey]
- The surveys are only a sample, response rate is 75% - missing potential data.
Activity Comparing the police recorded crime statistics & the CSEW
1. The csew are more valid as it shows crime is much more higher than what police figures typically suggest. Sometimes up to 4 times higher.
2. 𝐶𝑆𝐸𝑊 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑎 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 35,000 𝑎𝑑𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 3000 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛 𝑝
. Pr - very board data as they provide data from whole courts where as cs estimate representatives from the sample
3. Crime recorded by the CSEW include - domestic violence, stalking and sexual victimisation. These crimes may not be in the police recorded
crime statistics. - child abuse
4. Crimes such as drug dealing, arson, child abduction, murder, and modern slavery are crimes which may be in the police recorded crime
statistics but not in the CSEW.
5. Police recorded crime statistics is the most useful measure of crime because it reports serious crimes and gathers the statistics, this
enables people to analyse over the data and enforce laws and rules which could prevent them from being stopped.
6. Crimes such as crimes that occurs at school goes unreported by either PRCS and CSEW because school officials attempt to handle the
situation on their own instead of contacting law enforcements. This also goes for sexual assault, fraud victims
reccrime-
offence-ref
Self-report Studies
- Asking people which crimes they themselves have committed.
- Self-report studies on large-scale samples of adults
- List of minor criminal offences that is usually five to large samples of young people who are asked to tick the ones they have committed.
- Qualitative
- The Jack-roller (Shaw, 1966) - series of unstructured interviews to build up a 'life-history' of a criminal
- Gives an insight into criminality ^ , so its more favoured by interpretivist sociologists
- Campbell study on teenage girls - found levels of crime and deviance admitted to by females and males were much closer than the police
recorded figures tend to suggest.
- Boys may exaggerate or over-report their offences to create an impression of 'being tough' or conceal their crimes
- Longitudinal - can follow the same group of people over the course of several years
- E.G. ^ --> Cambridge study - by Farrington et al - followed criminal careers of 411 south London boys - 8 to 32 age
- Issues affecting the usefulness of self-report studies
- Validity
- Self- reports - how far do they produce a true picture of the number of offences committed?
- Truthfulness & accuracy
- May conceal offending or make false claims
- Validity - compared against recorded arrests or convictions as they contain their own flaws.
- Use official records to evaluate honesty
- E.g. - west & farrington - 18 age - 94% convicted boys admitted they had been convicted - 2% of unconvinced - claimed to have been
convicted.
- ^- older people & females - concerned to present a façade of respectability - young males who often offend more are more truthful.
- Attrition (participation & drop-out rates in studies)
- Difficult to find participants & and commit more offences = commit most offences
- High attrition rate survey = likely to miss number of offenders & under-estimate the true number of offences.
