Outline And Assess The View That The Official Crime Statistics

Outline and assess the view that the official crime statistics tell us more about the people involved in their collection than they tell us about crime and criminals
[60 marks]
Positivists believe that the official crime statistics (OSC) tell us about the crime & criminality and are very valuable. However, Intrepretivists would disagree and would criticise the OCS as they are socially constructed. They argue that the OCS lack reliability and therefore validity because it tells us more about the people involved in their collection eg, the general public, the victims of crime, the mass media, the police and the courts. The OCS tells us more about police stereotypes and prejudices, judges and jurors, the role of the media, and their views than about actual crime and criminality. Also, Marxists disagree with the OCS as they tell us more about the ruling classes and the powerful controllers of society.
The crimes are based on crimes reported by victims and the general public which have been recorded by the police, crimes detected and ‘cleared up’ by the police, and crimes reported to the British Crime Survey (BCS) in their annual victims survey. Positivist Sociologist believe that the OCS is useful because it gives an insight to the extent of crime eg, whether it is increasing or decreasing. The OCS also gives insight to who commit’s the crimes eg, usually 16 -21 year old working class, African Caribbean male. Positivists feel that the OCS helps explain why certain groups of people commit crime. The OCS produces quantitative data, which is often favoured by