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Summary Criminology Unit 1 AC 1.3 - consequences of unreported crime
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WJEC Criminology Unit 1 AC 1.3 - consequences of unreported crime Complete summary full marks
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1.3 consequences for unreported crimeNegative consequences
One negative consequence of unreported crime is the ripple effect. This is the effect of a
crime not being dealt with, which not only affects the immediate victim, but can also spread
to the family and friends of the victim, or even the wider community. One example of this is
house burglary. If the burglar is not caught or punished, the family of the victim may worry
that the burglar will return to the victim’s house. The neighbours could also fear that they
will be the next target, or they actually could be. Overall, if a crime goes unreported, it can
have a negative impact on many people and may even result in others being targeted or
harmed.
Another negative consequence of unreported crime is the cultural effects. Many cultures
have practices they carry out which other communities may disagree with but do not
interfere with, because it is not their culture to question. One example of this is female
genital mutilation, or FGM. This is where young girls’ genitals are cut (usually at the
beginning of puberty,) but can happen at any age between infancy and around 15 years old.
FGM is done to make sex not enjoyable for girls and therefore they only have sex for the
purpose of getting pregnant. The young girls have no choice in this, and every 11 seconds, a
girl is cut. Yet it goes unreported due to the idea of it being a ‘practice of culture.’ However,
this has negative consequences because it means the culture is never challenged and so
never changes, and harmful practices such as FGM continue to take place.
Another negative effect of unreported crime is the effect it has on police prioritisation. If
people do not report crimes, the police are unaware of how often certain crimes are
happening and therefore they focus on other crimes. Due to limited time and resources, the
police must prioritise some crimes over others. What they choose to prioritise is based on
media, public and government concern. The issue of police prioritisation creates a vicious
cycle as crimes go unreported, so the police are unaware, so people think the police don’t
care and don’t report crimes, and the cycle gets worse and worse. One example of this was
seen when the police in County Durham said they will no longer focus on small-scale
growers and smokers of cannabis due to the lack of reports, time and resources. Overall, if a
crime goes unreported, the public, media and government are unaware and so the issue
isn’t priorities and isn’t resolved.
Another negative consequence of unreported crime is that it means lots of crimes go
unreported, or some crimes are reported but the police don’t record them into their
records. This could be due to lack of evidence, not believing the story, the victim wont press
charges of the police don’t have enough time or resources. A total of 20% of reported
crimes go unreported, and this included 25% of all reports of rape or sexual offences. Up to
800,000 crimes go unrecorded each year. Also, crimes are being removed from police
records, including 200,000 rape cases, without telling the victim. It has been found that 20%
of police said they felt pressured to not report crimes by those in power above them. The
negative consequence of this is that offenders’ crimes could become more serious as they
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