Model Answer for WJEC Criminology Unit 1: Changing Awareness of Crime, AC1.6. In my Unit 1 exam I got full marks. Please put into your own words to avoid being penalised/use to help you understand what the question requires or to plan your own answer. Any mention to the brief needs to be adjusted t...
There are two methods that are used to collect crime statistics in the UK. Official statistics on crime are
government records of the total number of crimes recorded by the police and are produced by the
Home Office on an annual basis. The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) is a face-to-face
victimisation survey in which people are asked about their experience of a selected range of offences as
well as their perceptions of crime in the 12 months prior to the interview.
The Home Office is a government department that publishes statistics based on police recordings of
crime from police forces across the UK. The reports include the type of offence as well as when and
where it occurred. Their data is gathered from statistical surveys and is extracted from administrative or
management systems. They provide information regarding the amount of crime that exists at any one
point in time, allowing the government to develop crime prevention strategies and policing initiatives.
As these statistics are based on police recordings, they cover a broader set of offences and a wider
proportion of the UK population.
The CSEW is a victim survey completed by 50,000 members of the public that are over 16 years old. The
survey has been repeated annually since 1982 and includes crimes against households, adults and
businesses as well ad crimes experienced by children. It also contains information on the type of
offence, where it occurred, and the relationship the victim has with the offender. The questions included
focus on people’s attitudes towards crime-related topics such as anti-social behaviour, the police, and
the government.
Home Office statistics are a very limited method of collecting crime statistics. One reason for this is that
the police do not record all crime that is reported to them, and so have little information on unrecorded
crimes and no information on unreported crimes. This results in the Home Office’s statistics being
unreliable as their figures do not include any crimes that fall under the ‘dark figure’ of crime, which
makes up 60% of all crimes. Secondly, police officers may differ in their perceptions of whether a crime
that has been reported to them should be recorded or not, and there is variation in recording practices
both between police officers, police stations and between different years. This results in figures from
different years not being easily comparable. In addition, many police forces lack the resources and
funding to be able to process all information of the crimes recorded by them, which may lead to
inaccuracies in the statistics. The validity of this method of collecting statistics is also questionable as it
has been estimated that 60% of all reported crimes go unrecorded. This affects the Home Office’s
statistics as they do not consider all reported crime, let alone unreported crime. additionally, police
usually only record crime that they deem to be important or major, resulting in the statistics influencing
the public’s perception of crime levels to be higher with more severe crimes being committed that there
really are. However, this method does have its strengths. For example, the government can use the
information obtained from the statistics to detect future crimes that are similar and to put prevention
methods in place. It is also reliable as the publication of their statistics is procedural and happens every
month. The Home Office also has moral and professional codes of conduct that they have put in place
which include the collection, analysis, reporting and publication of all information from their research.
Unlike Home Office statistics, the CSEW is a more reliable method of collecting statistics as members of
the public are interviewed by trained interviewers that have ensured all questions are the same or
similar to those of previous years, meaning answers can be compared. The survey also relies on first-
hand victim knowledge which is likely to be more accurate than police-interpreted information.
However, some people’s memories are unlikely to be completely accurate and so victims may
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