Measuring crime

Crime (1)

Crime: A legal wrong than can be followed by criminal proceedings, which may result in punishmnet; an action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by law.

Crime and deviance are both ‘socially constructed’ - they are created and defined by society.

 

Crime and deviance are also relative - they will vary according to time, society and circumstance.

Measures of crime (1)

The first, official crime statistics (OCS) from police recorded crime, is based on police records - on record kept by the police of crimes which they have recorded.

 

The second, is the crime survey for England and Wales (CSEW) is based on interviews with a representative sample of adults. It asks whether they have been victims of crime during the previous year. This is a victim survey.

Measures of crime (2)

The official picture each year are statistics produced from police records to provide an offical amount of the volume of crime and trends in crime.

 

 In addition statistics compiled from court records and police cautioning records give more depth and data to the official statsitcal picture by recording who is repsonsible for these criminal offences - so painting the picture of the ‘criminal’.

 

Together, these statistics present a picture of the ‘crime problem’ - a picture interpreted for many different purposes.

4 Way’s in which measuring crime (1)

• official statistics

• Dark figures of crime (unrecorded)

• Victim surveys

• Self report