Crime statistics:
Trends and patterns of crime in the UK:
Trends of crime refers to the movement of the official crime statistics-whether they are
going up, down, or stay the same and in which areas of the country they occur.
Patterns refers to the characteristics of the offenders-social class, age, gender and ethnicity.
The distribution of crime is expressed in terms of the crime rate. This is taken from official
police statistics to show the number of crimes committed per 1000 people.
Sociologists do not entirely trust crime rates because they claim they are socially
constructed.
The social construction of crime statistics:
Crime rate: crime that has been reported to the police and officially recorded to them, in the
official statistics.
The dark figure of crime: crime that has either not been reported to the police or has been
reported but not recorded, so its not in the official statistics.
Police recorded crime (PRC):
Usefulness Limitations
Easy to access, already completed. Doesn’t include unrecorded crime.
Cover the whole population. Manipulation by the police.
Up-to-date. Lacks specific detail.
Crime survey of England and Wales (CSEW):
The biggest victim survey in Britain, with a sample of 35,000 adults and 3,000 children.
Its carried our through face to face structured interviews in victims homes.
They are used alongside police recorded statistics as part of official crime statistics by the
government to counteract the inaccuracies of PRC.
The CSEW suggests that some crimes are 4x as high as police recorded figures suggest.
Self-report studies:
These question people on what crimes they have or have not committed using an
anonymous quantitative questionnaire.
These are usually carried out on young people for minor crimes that might not have been
picked up by the police.
These help to:
Highlight victimless crimes, compare to official statistics and provide information on criminal
profiles.
Trends and patterns of crime in the UK:
Trends of crime refers to the movement of the official crime statistics-whether they are
going up, down, or stay the same and in which areas of the country they occur.
Patterns refers to the characteristics of the offenders-social class, age, gender and ethnicity.
The distribution of crime is expressed in terms of the crime rate. This is taken from official
police statistics to show the number of crimes committed per 1000 people.
Sociologists do not entirely trust crime rates because they claim they are socially
constructed.
The social construction of crime statistics:
Crime rate: crime that has been reported to the police and officially recorded to them, in the
official statistics.
The dark figure of crime: crime that has either not been reported to the police or has been
reported but not recorded, so its not in the official statistics.
Police recorded crime (PRC):
Usefulness Limitations
Easy to access, already completed. Doesn’t include unrecorded crime.
Cover the whole population. Manipulation by the police.
Up-to-date. Lacks specific detail.
Crime survey of England and Wales (CSEW):
The biggest victim survey in Britain, with a sample of 35,000 adults and 3,000 children.
Its carried our through face to face structured interviews in victims homes.
They are used alongside police recorded statistics as part of official crime statistics by the
government to counteract the inaccuracies of PRC.
The CSEW suggests that some crimes are 4x as high as police recorded figures suggest.
Self-report studies:
These question people on what crimes they have or have not committed using an
anonymous quantitative questionnaire.
These are usually carried out on young people for minor crimes that might not have been
picked up by the police.
These help to:
Highlight victimless crimes, compare to official statistics and provide information on criminal
profiles.
