A1 Methods used to measure crime and criminal behaviour This topic examines the different methods for measuring crime in England and Wales and the differences between each method.
Question
•If you wanted to know how many crimes were committed in England and Wales last year, where would you find statistics?
Aim: Topic A1: Methods used to measure crime and criminal behaviour
Topic A1 aims to examine three of the key methods of measuring crime used by protective services, such as the police and others who study crime, for example criminologists.
1, Home Office official statistics (i.e. police recorded crime statistics).
2, Self-report victim surveys (Crime Survey for England and Wales or CSEW).
3, Self-report offender surveys.
Crime Statistics Source 1: Home Office
The Home Office Official Statistics
• How are they collected? Every month, each of the 43 territorial police forces (plus the British Transport Police) supplies the Home Office with the number of crimes they have recorded in their area. These figures are sent to the Office for National Statistics, who publish final data for the whole country. Separate volumes for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are published on the Internet as well as in printed reports. These statistics are readily available to students, the general public, journalists and anybody else with an interest.
What do these statistics measure?
• All notifiable offences = all crimes that could be tried by a jury, together with some serious crimes that are tried by a magistrate, such as assault with injury. In total about 100 types of offence).
• Reports of criminal activity made by e.g. members of the public.
• Arrests made by the police.
Crime Statistics Source 1: Home Office
Why are the Home Office statistics an important measure of crime?
• Reliability: Results are recorded using consistent methods and definitions of crimes by different officers and across different police forces.
• The police are in a good position to record local crime figures accurately as the data is based on reports and arrests.
• These statistics can be used by e.g. the police to make comparisons on an annual basis to generate trends and patterns.
• PRC statistics are a valuable measure of police activity and can be used by the police for monitoring specific geographical areas, decision making and developing new initiatives. The Home Office can use them for policy making.
• The statistics are a good measure of crimes that are reported and recorded e.g. low volume crimes like homicide, and car theft (a crime number is needed to make a claim on insurance).
• A wider range of crimes is included than in the TCSEW and emerging trends can be tracked as data is published soon after it is collected.
However, there are important limitations
• Police recorded crime statistics can be questioned in terms of their validity because they leave out the ‘dark figure of crime’.
• Some crimes are underreported meaning that we do not have a complete picture. For example, the police recorded 55,000 rapes in 2019-2020, but these figures do not include victims who failed to report the offence or cases where the police did not record it.
• If e.g. a victim of domestic abuse takes their own life, then this is recorded as a ‘suicide’, but there may not be a record of any crime.
• According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, people only report approximately 40% of the crimes they experience.
• The police record 60% of the crimes the public report to them.
• Concerns about the consistency and quality of recording data
Crime Statistics Source 2: Self-report victim surveys
Crime Survey for England and Wales How are the statistics collected?
A sample of 50,000 people are interviewed each year about crimes they have experienced in the previous 12 months.
A separate survey is conducted for young people aged 10–15-years old. Trained interviewers as the same set of questions. This means the results are highly reliable because the interviewee the same answers regardless of who asks the questions.
Differences between victim surveys as measures of crime
• CSEW interviews are anonymous and confidential, therefore it is not possible to identify a victim from the published data. Information given is destroyed after the statistics are produced and is not shared with other organisations.
• Interviewees may not be aware that an incident was a crime, thus people may not define crimes in the same way the survey does. Contrast: police officers have training.
• The CSEW has consistently recorded more crimes than the police statistics, which can result in evidence of both crime rising and decreasing when the two sets of figures are compared.
• The Office for National Statistics has decided that the police recorded crime statistics do not meet the required standard for UK government statistics, and decided that the CSEW is the best measure of long-term trends within the population.
• Not all victims of crime are included: e.g. because it does not cover people living in prisons, children’s homes and elderly care homes (where abuse could be experienced). Homeless people are excluded.
• The CSEW excludes crimes where there is no specific vicitim e.g. tax or benefit fraud, crimes against businesses, homicides or drug use.
Why are victim surveys important as measures of crime?
• The CSEW is a valuable way of obtaining information about the dark figure of unreported crime, meaning the data has validity.
• The CSEW provides valuable insights into victims’ experiences. This ‘victim’s-eye view’ gives us evidence of the impact of crime.
• It collects data on crimes that the public are concerned about e.g. violence and property crimes.
• CSEW findings can be used in crime reduction programmes because they give insights into which groups and areas most at risk of becoming victims of crime.
Key reasons for unreported crime
• Having examined the first two key sources of data that measure crime, we can see that they underestimate crime because many criminal acts go unreported.
• Task: Can you identify examples of crimes that are often unreported for the following reasons? See notes section for suggestions.
Fear Examples: Fear of further violence if the victim makes a report to the police. Fear of not being believed if they make a report.
Shame Examples: Crimes that make a victim feel vulnerable, embarrassed or ashamed can make it more difficult for the victim to report the crime. Not being directly affected or not seeing the action as a criminal act. Examples: When a person sees evidence of criminal damage but views it as being none of their business to report it. Moral crimes, which may be seen as victimless may not be reported. Actions resulting in low levels of damage
Source 3: Self-report offender surveys
What are the key features of self-report offender surveys?
They ask people what crimes they have committed through confidential and anonymous questionnaires or interviews. Serious crimes are not usually included.
Why are self-report offender surveys important as measures of crime?
• Anonymity may mean respondents are more truthful.
• They can be used to uncover ‘victimless crimes’, such as drug use and undetected crimes like fraud.
• They reveal that there is little difference between social classes or ethnic groups in their level of offending.
• It is thought that 80% of respondents tell the truth.
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