Criminology Unit 1 AC 1.3 - You will have to show an understanding of the positive and negative
effects of unreported crime on the individual and on society.
Ripple effect : A ripple effect describes how a single crime not taken seriously leads to more of
the same crimes on a much bigger scale, affecting many more people. So it ripples out into the
wider society. For instance hate crimes towards disabled people occur so often that it might just
be seen as a norm in society. Therefore, because of this it gets unreported, so this behaviour is
unpunished and is then repeated on a larger scale. Another offence is domestic abuse, if you
have ever witnessed abuse take place within your family, friends, or in your neighbourhood and
it’s unreported, this behaviour can be seen as acceptable. So at such a young age you could be
socialised into this behaviour, repeating it as adults, causing a ripple effect.
Cultural : In different cultures there are some actions criminal in one country and not another. As
of these cultural differences it means that certain crimes do not get reported and are not
recognised. Female genital mutilation is illegal in the UK, but there are some cultures in the UK
who believe this is an acceptable thing to do. It can be difficult to understand different cultures
from our own and people may not choose to interfere with different cultures beliefs, so they turn
a blind eye. Similarly with honour killings, these drastic actions are seen as acceptable in
western society but not with the majority of cultures. The Kristy Bamu case is a prime example
of an outrageous incident of a 15 year old boy who was killed by members of his own family. It
was a very complex culture bound crime which made it very difficult for the authorities to see
culture as an excuse. As they are aware it is a violent act it is not necessarily seen as a crime by
many Asain communities, which results in little to no reported honour crimes.
Decriminalization : When crimes go unreported it's usually to do with the lack of public concern.
For things like drugs and prostitution such actions are so comon to the public eye that people do
not see these as real offences so they become decriminalised. Although there are still laws
against these types of crimes less time and money is spent trying to find the offenders. In
Portugal they decriminalised all drugs in 2001 which has led to a dramatic drop in overdoses
and drug related crimes. Decriminalization can be positive because it means that police can put
more time and resources into more important crimes.
Police prioritisation : The police often prioritize certain crimes to ensure that the issues in the
local area are dealt with and hopefully don’t happen again. With honour crimes the police have
got new teams to target honour crime hotspots. For domestic abuse cases the victims are
getting help from both the mosque as well as the police, to help the victims have the courage to
report against the actions given by their husbands/wives. The portugese police have also aimed
to target the main suppliers rather than the users, because the drug related crimes were never
reported.
Unrecorded crime : Unrecorded crime is when a crime gets reported to the police but does not
get recorded by the officers. If an officer does not report a crime it will not be noted down in the
police statistics and is therefore known as the dark figure of crime. These are the crimes that no
one has witnessed, crimes that were witnessed but not reported and crimes reported but not
effects of unreported crime on the individual and on society.
Ripple effect : A ripple effect describes how a single crime not taken seriously leads to more of
the same crimes on a much bigger scale, affecting many more people. So it ripples out into the
wider society. For instance hate crimes towards disabled people occur so often that it might just
be seen as a norm in society. Therefore, because of this it gets unreported, so this behaviour is
unpunished and is then repeated on a larger scale. Another offence is domestic abuse, if you
have ever witnessed abuse take place within your family, friends, or in your neighbourhood and
it’s unreported, this behaviour can be seen as acceptable. So at such a young age you could be
socialised into this behaviour, repeating it as adults, causing a ripple effect.
Cultural : In different cultures there are some actions criminal in one country and not another. As
of these cultural differences it means that certain crimes do not get reported and are not
recognised. Female genital mutilation is illegal in the UK, but there are some cultures in the UK
who believe this is an acceptable thing to do. It can be difficult to understand different cultures
from our own and people may not choose to interfere with different cultures beliefs, so they turn
a blind eye. Similarly with honour killings, these drastic actions are seen as acceptable in
western society but not with the majority of cultures. The Kristy Bamu case is a prime example
of an outrageous incident of a 15 year old boy who was killed by members of his own family. It
was a very complex culture bound crime which made it very difficult for the authorities to see
culture as an excuse. As they are aware it is a violent act it is not necessarily seen as a crime by
many Asain communities, which results in little to no reported honour crimes.
Decriminalization : When crimes go unreported it's usually to do with the lack of public concern.
For things like drugs and prostitution such actions are so comon to the public eye that people do
not see these as real offences so they become decriminalised. Although there are still laws
against these types of crimes less time and money is spent trying to find the offenders. In
Portugal they decriminalised all drugs in 2001 which has led to a dramatic drop in overdoses
and drug related crimes. Decriminalization can be positive because it means that police can put
more time and resources into more important crimes.
Police prioritisation : The police often prioritize certain crimes to ensure that the issues in the
local area are dealt with and hopefully don’t happen again. With honour crimes the police have
got new teams to target honour crime hotspots. For domestic abuse cases the victims are
getting help from both the mosque as well as the police, to help the victims have the courage to
report against the actions given by their husbands/wives. The portugese police have also aimed
to target the main suppliers rather than the users, because the drug related crimes were never
reported.
Unrecorded crime : Unrecorded crime is when a crime gets reported to the police but does not
get recorded by the officers. If an officer does not report a crime it will not be noted down in the
police statistics and is therefore known as the dark figure of crime. These are the crimes that no
one has witnessed, crimes that were witnessed but not reported and crimes reported but not
