Outline and assess the usefulness of official statistics in measuring crime
Sociology: Outline and assess the usefulness of official statistics in measuring crime.
Crime is basically any sort of behaviour or an act which breaks laws of a society and is punished by the legal system. What is considered criminal or deviant is culturally determined. This means that what is considered criminal or deviant changes with time and place, as the values, norms and expectations change. What may not be acceptable in one society at a particular time may be acceptable in another country or acceptable at another time, for example drug cafes in Amsterdam.
Police Crime Figures have been recorded and published annually by the Home Office since the year 1857. Crime statistics are compiled in the basis of “offences notified to the police”. In this respect, they provide evidence of crimes that are known to the police and officially recorded by the police. Official statistics are useful in measuring crime because they allow us to spot trends and patterns in the crime rates and the social background of criminals/victims (quantative data). Also, these statistics help inform government policy. Theories like functionalism have used official statistics to develop theories to explain patterns in the official statistics. Durkheim used statistics to measure suicide rates, a form of deviance between societies and groups and developed theories about suicide. Others, like Merton assumed that the statistics were valid and reliable and went on to develop explanations about working-class criminality.
Many people now turn to victim Surveys such as the British Crime Survey (BCS) as more reliable sources of information. Victim Surveys are so called because they ask a sample of the population what crimes they have been a victim in the previous 12 months. This increases validity as they include all crimes that people have been a victim of, regardless of whether or not they reported the crime to the police. A number of crimes are not covered by the survey. These include
Crime is basically any sort of behaviour or an act which breaks laws of a society and is punished by the legal system. What is considered criminal or deviant is culturally determined. This means that what is considered criminal or deviant changes with time and place, as the values, norms and expectations change. What may not be acceptable in one society at a particular time may be acceptable in another country or acceptable at another time, for example drug cafes in Amsterdam.
Police Crime Figures have been recorded and published annually by the Home Office since the year 1857. Crime statistics are compiled in the basis of “offences notified to the police”. In this respect, they provide evidence of crimes that are known to the police and officially recorded by the police. Official statistics are useful in measuring crime because they allow us to spot trends and patterns in the crime rates and the social background of criminals/victims (quantative data). Also, these statistics help inform government policy. Theories like functionalism have used official statistics to develop theories to explain patterns in the official statistics. Durkheim used statistics to measure suicide rates, a form of deviance between societies and groups and developed theories about suicide. Others, like Merton assumed that the statistics were valid and reliable and went on to develop explanations about working-class criminality.
Many people now turn to victim Surveys such as the British Crime Survey (BCS) as more reliable sources of information. Victim Surveys are so called because they ask a sample of the population what crimes they have been a victim in the previous 12 months. This increases validity as they include all crimes that people have been a victim of, regardless of whether or not they reported the crime to the police. A number of crimes are not covered by the survey. These include