Evaluating methods of collecting data about crime.
There are two main methods of collecting crime statistics which are: Home Office
statistics and Crime Survey for England and Wales.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) is a victim survey that measures
crime rates in England and Wales. They do that by asking questions about crimes in
households they also include data from children and adults experiencing crimes.
They also use data like crimes that were not reported to the police this then makes
the survey more accurate recording the measure than surveys that just ask about
crimes reported to the police.The Home Office statistics are the crimes recorded by
police forces nationally. This information can also be accessed by anyone. They
make a table of recorded crimes by police forces which included types of offences
the place and time period.
The Home Office statistics data is collected from police forces this then makes it
easy for anyone to access and compare data across police forces. This is good
because Home Office puts all the forces in the UK in a table, so it is easy to see
which police forces are recording crimes and which are not reporting crimes, and if a
police force doesn’t have many crimes reported it could suggest that people are not
committing crimes or police and people and police are not reporting and recording
crimes which makes it is easy to step in for higher authorities to do something about
the issue of underreported crimes and unrecorded data.
The CSEW collects data from volunteers who are willing to share some of their
personal experiences with crimes this means they lack population validity. If all the
participants are volunteers it could suggest they didn’t experince a very serious
crime like rape because if the victim did there is a possiblity they wouldn’t want to
share it so they could add it to CSEW statistics, and according to their website they
only interview about 50,000. This then means those people’s results can’t be
compared to or applied to everyone in England and Wales. However they rely on first
hand victim knowledge and it then may also be more accurate than police interpreted
information.
The CSEW uses the method of interviewing people this is a weakness as it may
mean there is interview bias. This means that the interviewer influences participants
answers for example the interviewer could re-word the questions or make the
participants come out with a certain answer that the interviewer wants to hear. This
then also meant that the survey might not be reliable if there is a potential interviewer
bias also means that the data may not be entirely accurate or correct. This also isn’t
true for all interviewers as they are all probably trained to ask the same set of
questions so results are likely to be somewhat reliable.
There are two main methods of collecting crime statistics which are: Home Office
statistics and Crime Survey for England and Wales.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) is a victim survey that measures
crime rates in England and Wales. They do that by asking questions about crimes in
households they also include data from children and adults experiencing crimes.
They also use data like crimes that were not reported to the police this then makes
the survey more accurate recording the measure than surveys that just ask about
crimes reported to the police.The Home Office statistics are the crimes recorded by
police forces nationally. This information can also be accessed by anyone. They
make a table of recorded crimes by police forces which included types of offences
the place and time period.
The Home Office statistics data is collected from police forces this then makes it
easy for anyone to access and compare data across police forces. This is good
because Home Office puts all the forces in the UK in a table, so it is easy to see
which police forces are recording crimes and which are not reporting crimes, and if a
police force doesn’t have many crimes reported it could suggest that people are not
committing crimes or police and people and police are not reporting and recording
crimes which makes it is easy to step in for higher authorities to do something about
the issue of underreported crimes and unrecorded data.
The CSEW collects data from volunteers who are willing to share some of their
personal experiences with crimes this means they lack population validity. If all the
participants are volunteers it could suggest they didn’t experince a very serious
crime like rape because if the victim did there is a possiblity they wouldn’t want to
share it so they could add it to CSEW statistics, and according to their website they
only interview about 50,000. This then means those people’s results can’t be
compared to or applied to everyone in England and Wales. However they rely on first
hand victim knowledge and it then may also be more accurate than police interpreted
information.
The CSEW uses the method of interviewing people this is a weakness as it may
mean there is interview bias. This means that the interviewer influences participants
answers for example the interviewer could re-word the questions or make the
participants come out with a certain answer that the interviewer wants to hear. This
then also meant that the survey might not be reliable if there is a potential interviewer
bias also means that the data may not be entirely accurate or correct. This also isn’t
true for all interviewers as they are all probably trained to ask the same set of
questions so results are likely to be somewhat reliable.
