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Measuring crime: - Coggle Diagram
Measuring crime:
Police recorded crime figures:
Definitions. laws and police counting rules change - not strictly comparable. As they did in 2002.
Changes in police practice and government policy may influence them, as policies about dealing with certain offences my change for example, Cannabis going from a class A to B.
Changes in public perception may influence them. For example, a certain crime may be noticed and reported more if it has been recently publicised i.e. the moral panic of 'hoodies' in 2006 which led to
Bluewater shopping centre
, Kent banning the wearing of hoodies.
Targets of a particular area may make accuracy vary between places.
Pressure on police to meet crime reduction targets may lead to some crimes 'disappearing' from the figures or being downgraded.
Corrupt officers may have their own reasoning for mis recording individual crimes.
Interpretivists
say that they tell us more about those employed by the criminal justice system than crime and criminals.
Typifications.
Discretion: some police forces may choose to treat soft drug use lightly and not arrest or charge people for using cannabis, while other police forces treat ALL drug offences equally.
Don't include un-recorded or un-reported crime. Young males = too embarrassed to report violence. Or don't realise they are victims.
Institutional victims of crime i.e. banks won't report crime due to reputation and publicity which could = loosing customers.
'New' crimes.
Don't include social characteristics of victims i.e. class, ethnicity, employment or gender.
Can be distorted by criminal crimes. For example, Dr Harold Shipman committed over 200 murders in a 40- year period but this was discovered in 2001. Added to 2002 murder stats and gave false impression of murders between 2001-03.
The 'dark figure' of rape and sexual assault:
A survey on rape and sexual assault carried out by
Mumsnet
in 2012 found that 83% of those who had been raped or sexually assaulted did not report it to the police. 1/2 said they would be too embarrassed or ashamed.
Kier Starmer
, former director of Public Prosecutions, said in 2012 9 out of 10 rapes and other sexual attacks are never reported to the police.
In 2014, the Ministry of Justice revealed that the conviction rate for sexual offences was just 55%.
The manipulation of police recorded crime statistics:
Techniques:
Coughing:
an offender may be encouraged to admit a number of offences in return for being charged for a lesser offence which = reduced sentence. This would greatly improve 'clear-up rate'.
Cuffing:
crimes which have been reported or initially recorded, being removed from stats at later date.
'No-criming'
. This can happen for several reasons:
Officer decides they didn't believe complaint once reassessing the offence following further investigation.
Or to improve figures.
(sometimes persuade victim to withdraw allegation.)
James Patrick
-
whistleblower:
Madde allegations relating to the routine manipulation of police crime statistics in 2013. Gave evidence to a Parliamentary Committee about his concerns.
Found even serious sexual offences were often 'no-crimed' and burglary was subject to the process of coughing aka being downgraded.