Mustafa Jama
1.6
Reliability & Validity - Reliability refers to when information received is valid and can give the same,
consistent result as when received from someone else. Police reported crime statistics are often thought
of as reliable. This is due to the way the police carry out their recording of crimes – the police all
understand the same method of reporting crime as other police. However, this does come with
limitations. A limitation is that the police could report a crime as a different category compared to if
other police staff members were recording a crime.
Validity is when a source is decided whether to be trusted or not. This gives benefits of actual crime
statistics. An example of the use of validity would be rape victims and how their claims may not be seen
as valid. Rape victims may also not report a crime due to the fear of their claims not being seen as valid.
This leads to the issue of the “Dark Figure of crime”. The “Dark figure of crime” is the missing statistics of
crime as they will be unreported or unrecorded by police. Rape is often the most common type of
unreported crime.
Home office statistics -
Home office statistics is how reported crimes are recorded, for example who had committed the crime,
where and when the crime was committed. Home office statistics are used to find out vulnerabilities in
the systems. These records can be accessed by people and the general public. Tue to the home office
statistics only working with information that they have already been given, this reduces the validity of
the method as there will still be a dark figure of crime.
Ethics of research - Ethics of research relates to the morality of how research of crime is carried out and
conducted. This can be linked to the idea of whether victims or offenders should have their right to
privacy. Research carried out should be told whether the data will be confidential or not. Examples of
confidential research would the Crime survey for England and Wales
Strengths and limitations – The limitations of recording crimes with the home office statistics is that it is
not private, this can result in people finding victims and starting a witch hunt, another limitation is that it
can link to the dark figure of crime as there will be people who don’t report crimes, the home office
statistics only works with crimes that have been recorded.
Crime survey for England and Wales (CSEW) -
CSEW is a survey which is conducted across all of England and Wales, it is used to ask the general public
about their experiences with crimes in their area.
Ethics of research - Ethics of research relates to the morality of how research of crime is carried out and
conducted. This can be linked to the idea of whether victims or offenders should have their right to
privacy.
Strengths and limitations - Strengths of this method of research is that it captures crimes that would
have not been reported otherwise if the method used was home office statistics. This will then close the
gap of the dark figure in their research as people will often report a crime if they were asked to rather
than them doing it themselves (there are multiple reasons why people wouldn’t report a crime such as
1.6
Reliability & Validity - Reliability refers to when information received is valid and can give the same,
consistent result as when received from someone else. Police reported crime statistics are often thought
of as reliable. This is due to the way the police carry out their recording of crimes – the police all
understand the same method of reporting crime as other police. However, this does come with
limitations. A limitation is that the police could report a crime as a different category compared to if
other police staff members were recording a crime.
Validity is when a source is decided whether to be trusted or not. This gives benefits of actual crime
statistics. An example of the use of validity would be rape victims and how their claims may not be seen
as valid. Rape victims may also not report a crime due to the fear of their claims not being seen as valid.
This leads to the issue of the “Dark Figure of crime”. The “Dark figure of crime” is the missing statistics of
crime as they will be unreported or unrecorded by police. Rape is often the most common type of
unreported crime.
Home office statistics -
Home office statistics is how reported crimes are recorded, for example who had committed the crime,
where and when the crime was committed. Home office statistics are used to find out vulnerabilities in
the systems. These records can be accessed by people and the general public. Tue to the home office
statistics only working with information that they have already been given, this reduces the validity of
the method as there will still be a dark figure of crime.
Ethics of research - Ethics of research relates to the morality of how research of crime is carried out and
conducted. This can be linked to the idea of whether victims or offenders should have their right to
privacy. Research carried out should be told whether the data will be confidential or not. Examples of
confidential research would the Crime survey for England and Wales
Strengths and limitations – The limitations of recording crimes with the home office statistics is that it is
not private, this can result in people finding victims and starting a witch hunt, another limitation is that it
can link to the dark figure of crime as there will be people who don’t report crimes, the home office
statistics only works with crimes that have been recorded.
Crime survey for England and Wales (CSEW) -
CSEW is a survey which is conducted across all of England and Wales, it is used to ask the general public
about their experiences with crimes in their area.
Ethics of research - Ethics of research relates to the morality of how research of crime is carried out and
conducted. This can be linked to the idea of whether victims or offenders should have their right to
privacy.
Strengths and limitations - Strengths of this method of research is that it captures crimes that would
have not been reported otherwise if the method used was home office statistics. This will then close the
gap of the dark figure in their research as people will often report a crime if they were asked to rather
than them doing it themselves (there are multiple reasons why people wouldn’t report a crime such as
