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 1.3 - explain the consequences of unreported crime
The ripple effect explains how the consequences of crime can spread beyond the immediate victim
or the perpetrator throughout family, friends, the local community or the wider society. There are
both positive and negative effects of the ripple effect as it increases public awareness due to media
coverage of the crimes committed and the effects but innocent people can be affected by crime
when they haven’t done anything wrong e.g. if a victim has to have time off work other work
colleagues are affected as they now have to cover the shifts. An example of the ripple effect is
unreported business crimes such as shoplifting as when someone shoplifts the retailers lose goods
so to compensate for their losses the prices of the goods are increased. This price rise then effects
the customers and community as they have to pay higher more for goods than they normally would.
On average an estimated 1.2 million business crimes went unreported between 2013-14, worth
more than £12 billion.
Cultural differences mean a crime can be criminal/illegal in one country but not in another. This
causes underreporting as people are not aware, they are happening as they are not publicised by the
media and no one within communities where it is acceptable will report it as that it their cultural
norm. This also means crimes such as FGM, honour killing and witchcraft related violence cannot be
prevented as the police are not aware. An example of this is the honour killing of Banaz Mahmod as
she was killed by her father, uncle and cousins for choosing her own boyfriend as I their culture this
was deemed as unacceptable and shameful behaviour, as it is tradition withing that culture for the
woman’s family to choose her boyfriend/husband. Banaz went to the police about 5 times prior to
her murder to tell the police she felt unsafe and that her family were planning to kill her, however
due to the lack of awareness and knowledge around honour crime her reports were not taken
seriously. This shows how her murder could have been prevented if people in wider communities
were more educated and aware of different cultures. Another example of this is the murder of Kristy
Bamu as he was staying with a trusted member of his community and he got accused of witchcraft
possession, referred to as Kindoki. Kristy suffered a lot of domestic abuse such as being smashed in
the head and mouth with a hammer and being tortured with plyers before he was then drowned in
the bath and murdered. This type of crime is unreported due to the low levels of public awareness
and it often takes place inside a house so it is hidden and other people in the community believe it is
acceptable.
Decriminalisation is a consequence of unreported crime as it becomes normalised within society
and people no longer regard the activity as criminal due to the lack of public interest. Changing
attitudes in society towards that homosexuals were rarely criminalised and this eventually led to the
legalisation of same sex marriage. However, there are negative effects of decriminalisation such as
underage drinking, drug use and prostitution as due to the lack of public interest in these crimes
they went unreported and therefore became normalised within society meaning this could cause an
increase in this type of crime as it not viewed an actual offence.
Police prioritisation occurs due to the tightening of police budgets of frontline policing and it’s
becoming increasingly difficult for police to help every report and monitor every area. Police leads
have to decide on what crimes to focus on crime statistics and the public. Therefore, this means that
if crimes are unreported, they will be low on police prioritisation as they will not be included in the
crime statistics and future victims who do report crimes that are typically unreported may not get
justice as the police will not prioritise the report. Police uses predictive crime mapping which
predicts when and where crime is more likely to happen so officers can be deployed to areas which
need them more. However, statistics don’t include unreported or unrecorded crimes by the police.
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