criminology wjec a level unit 1 controlled assessment
changing awareness of crime
lo1 lo3 criminology unit 1
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A/AS Level
WJEC
Criminology
Changing Awareness of Crime
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Mia Lunt
AC 1.2 - explain the reasons that certain crimes are unreported
There are many different reasons why crimes go unreported and this may be due to personal
reasons or social and cultural reasons but also pressure surrounding the individual. Overall, it
ultimately depends on the context of the crime and how the individual has been affected by it.
There are various different personal reasons for not reporting a crime such as general fear of
reporting the crime and also fear of the consequences after reporting the crime. Crimes such as hate
crime and domestic abuse mostly go unreported for these reasons. Also, victims of domestic abuse
often have intimate relationships with the offender, meaning they may share a house or have
children therefore meaning victims might be scared to report it in case they don’t have anywhere
else to go and they are scared of possibly losing their children. In March 2019 the CSEW found that
43% of domestic abuse cases were unreported. Another personal reasons are that victims may feel
shame or embarrassment and this is mostly associated with crimes such as rape/sexual assault,
domestic abuse and hate crime. The victim of these crimes may not want others to know what
happened to them and might not feel comfortable sharing details about what happened as they
were in a vulnerable state. An additional reason is that people are not directly by the crime and this
relates to moral crimes that are perceived as victimless such as underage sex, vagrancy and drug
taking. Individuals that don’t feel upset or affected by these crimes may choose to ignore them as
they don’t want to get involved. Lastly, a disinterest in the crime itself is another personal reason for
crimes being unreported. This can occur with crimes such as vandalism and vagrancy as it doesn’t
directly concern the individual so therefore doesn’t take up interest of a bystander to report it.
Social and cultural reasons can also affect whether a crime is reported or not. One reason may be a
lack of knowledge meaning a victim or individual may be unaware that acts being made are a crime
and may not know the procedure of how to report the crime. Crimes such as cyberbullying via social
media, domestic abuse and hate crime may be unreported due to this. Another reason is that a lot of
crimes or the process of reporting the crime itself can be very complex and this may put an
individual off reporting it as they may be confused as it is too difficult to understand. White collar
crime and technological crime may be unreported for this reason as victims are often not aware
there is a crime taking place at the time and don’t know how to report it. Furthermore, a lack of
media interest can also be a reason why crimes are unreported as they are not widely promoted as
they think the public won’t be interested. This mostly effects moral crimes such as prostitution and
underage drinking but also individual crimes such as honour crime. Also, a lack of public concern can
determine whether an offence is considered a ‘real’ crime or not also influences an individual to
report a crime or not as sometimes there is no concern about an offence being illegal. Examples of
crimes that may be affected by this are downloading music illegally, drug use and using cannabis as
overlooked by society today as they are relatively common and people don’t see a purpose in
reporting it. Lastly, culture bound crime can determine is crimes are reported or not as some crime
are viewed as acceptable in certain cultures but not others. Therefore, people may ignore it due to
not having a full understanding of the culture and don’t want to interfere. Crimes affected by this
are honour crimes e.g. honour killings, witchcraft and arranged marriages.
Sometimes individual crimes are not reported for many various reasons and may not fit into one
category of either personal or social and cultural reasons. An example of this is rape as the victim
may feel embarrassed talking about their experience and also may feel triggered by discussing it as
they do not want to relive what happened to them. Also, society can sometimes have a negative
attitude towards rape and pass the blame onto the victim rather than the offender and victims are
afraid that they do not have enough evidence to report this so people might not believe them.
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