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WJEC Criminology Unit 1 Exam
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AC 1.6- Evaluate methods of colleting statistics about crimeTraditionally, there are 2 methods for measuring and tracking trends in crime- The home office,
recorded crime statistics collected by the police and The Crime Survey for England and Wales where
information is collected.
The Home Office provides police records in tables, with the figures broken down into type of
offense, geography, and time period. Every month, all 43 police forces report to the home office with
the number and types of crimes they have recorded in their areas. The crime surveys are completed
by the public about their experiences with crime over the year. They are mainly focused on being
victim surveys to get statistics based on people being victims of crime and what their experiences
were from their point of view. The survey includes crimes against society, children, and businesses
but some that aren’t reported to the police. It is one of the biggest social surveys in Britain with
around 50,000 people taking part each year.
Just like any form of collecting statistics, there are always advantages and disadvantages to each.
Reliability is one problem in the methods. Any statistics has its limitations, and no source can be
completely accurate. Due to ‘no- criming’ from the police, when reporting to the home office, their
statistics may not be completely reliable as a result of individual police officers not recording every
crime they report to if they don’t think its worthy of being recorded- 200 rapes a year aren’t
recorded by the police and 20% of 8,600 police staff felt pressured not to record certain crimes in
the last 6 months. Also because of the number of forces who report each month, they will all record
things differently and in different details. There are also reliability problems within the crime survey.
Because of the underreporting of some crimes and ‘victimless crimes’ not effecting other people
who my witness something people don’t report or don’t get the true statistics because not enough is
reported. Another issue is the areas known to have the highest rates of crime, have the lowest
response rate to the survey because they have become so desensitised to the crime happening
around them due to its frequency so has become a more normal part of their everyday life.
Validity is another problem. Because police don’t report to or record all crime, don’t know about
crime that is unreported to them so there is missing data for some crimes but also police could
purposefully not record certain crimes so they can manipulate it to look a certain way. The crime
survey has validity issues because it’s a self- reported survey which relies on people remembering
things they might have been victims of or witnessed all throughout the year. Things that people have
witnessed may be more easily forgotten about as they didn’t directly affect them, but people may
also be victims of crime they aren’t aware of so don’t report it in the survey.
These are all limitations of collecting statistics but due to the lack of consistency in both methods, it
resulted in police reporting a 10% increase in crime in 2017 and the crime survey reporting a 7%
decrease in crime in 2017.
However, despite that, The Crime Survey captures a lot of unreported crime, allowing victims to
express first hand knowledge but also allows people at most risk to be identified and for preventions
scheme to be improved or created. Also police recorded crime can use all the collected data to help
prevent future crimes or detect areas needing support.
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