Full mark WJEC Criminology Unit 1 AC1.6 model answers. This includes model answers to the AC1.6 question in the Unit 1 exam for criminology that allowed me to achieve an overall A* in the exam. I hope that it helps you do the same! :)
AC1.6 Evaluate methods of collecting statistics about crime
Home office statistics: Home office statistics are crimes which are recorded
by the police. Every crime which has been reported to the police will then be
recorded by them and these records are included in these statistics. England
and Wales have 43 regional police forces and the British Transport Police.
Every month, all the forces will report how many crimes they recorded in
their area over the month period to the Home Office. These statistics will
then be sent to the Officer for National statistics who will then issue the final
statistics are the general public to access. Police recorded crimes are
thought to be very reliable due to how every police officer is expected to
follow the same procedure when recording crime as other officers. However,
it is possible that some officers might classify the same incident differently.
For example, one officer may say one crime is an assault with injury whereas
another officer might say the same crime is classified as an assault without
injury. Police recorded crime could potentially not be valid. For example, the
number of recorded rape incidents in 2019-2022 was 55,000 however many
people might not report the offence and police might also fail to record it as
a crime, this means that the number is false regarding the true extend of
rape crimes. Another problem with home office statistics is that some crimes
are less likely to be recorded or even reported than others. This will distort
the true picture. This problem is linked with policy issues. If the government
and the criminal justice system have relied on the police recorded statistics,
this can potentially lead to them creating policies which only tackle the types
of crimes which are seen to be the most important from the home office
statistics. The dark figure of crime are crimes which get reported to the
police but not recorded.
The crime survey for England and Wales: This is a survey with will
anonymously interview 50,000 victims of crime about their experiences
every year. Due to how the CSEW is managed by trained interviewers who
ask the same questions each year, the results are expected to be very
reliable. Because everyone questioned is a victim, they are highly likely to
give the same answers meaning the results will be consistent. However, it is
possible for the interviewer to receive different answers to the same
questions which can change the consistency and therefore the reliability. A
big advantage of the survey is that it will uncover a lot of unreported crime.
This means that this is a very valuable way of getting information about the
dark figure of crime, this will produce valid statistics. On the other hand, due
to how the survey is based on the answers given to the questions, it heavily
relies on how strong the victim's memory is, how honest they are, and how
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