Assess the usefulness of official statistics to our understanding of social problems. Illustrate your response with sociological arguments and evidence. To assess the usefulness of official statistics to our understanding of social problems, I will first look at what official statistics are, I will then look at crime and suicide as two examples of social problems. I will look at how both Positivists and Interpretativists use these statistics and how useful each of these sociological approaches find them. Official statistics is the name given to the numbers of crimes reported to or unveiled by the police themselves, which lead to a conviction, caution or are dealt with in some formal way by the law.
The British Crime Survey also includes crimes which are not reported to the police, therefore is an important alternative to police records and provides criminologists, the police, the courts, the media and anyone else who has an interest with the statistics, two different types of data: Firstly trends on crime over time chartered, Details are compiled from offenders who are eventually found guilty or cautioned; details gathered include sex and the age of the offender. Information is gathered on the “Known offender”, in this case the “Typical offender”, (Maguire 1997). Official crime
DISCUSS THE PROBLEMS IN MEASURING AND DEFINING CRIME AND DEVIANCE. INTRODUCTION This paper will discuss the problems faced whilst trying to define and measure crime and deviance whilst also explaining the differences and relationship between crime and deviance. Criminologists have created means of measuring crime which this paper will explore and identify problems which will occur during the recording of crime and will explore influences on crime and crime statistics. DEFINING CRIME AND DEVIANCE Defining crime or deviance is diverse amongst the many different cultures, history and from one social context to another (new texts pg 138) which causes a big problem whilst defining and measuring crime or deviance as what is believed to be criminal or deviant behaviour in one society may be seen as legal or normal behaviour by another society. There are many theories relating to deviance and crime with each theory illustrating a different aspect of the procedure by which people break rules and are classed as deviants or criminals.
(Hallam et al. 2005: 56) Some crimes however are not reported because the victim may be intimidated by the person responsible for the crime, or they may not have faith in the police to pursue the crime if they do report it. Other victims of crime may not report it as they feel that the crime is too minor, or that the police will think it is too minor to pursue. A large amount of sexual crime goes unreported because the victim is either too shocked, afraid or embarrassed. Police can use their discretion as to whether or not an incident is worth reporting, they have to decide if the incident is serious
Crime Statistics “Crime statistics is an attempt to provide statistical measures of the crime in societies.” Unfortunately, because some crime is secretive, some unknown because they are never reported, therefore the results become very inaccurate. There are several ways on how these statistics are received, such as, hospital of insurance records, household surveys, and reports for several law enforcement agencies. Many countries gather their statistical crime information and it becomes of interest to international organizations such as, Interpol and the United Nations. Places like the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Home Office in England & Whales, are the agencies that publish these crime statistics and compile the statistics based on the different crimes that have been reported. Statistics are usually collected on based on three categories: Offenses, the breach of law; Offenders, those who commit the offenses; and the victims, the ones who are offended against.
Lynne Borges CJS 258-01 Prof. Harden May 6, 2011 Chapter 13: Choosing Crime in Everyday Life Chapter 13 is titled, “Choosing Crime in Everyday Life.” Explain the significance of this title and how opportunity theorists seek to explain and deter criminal behavior. In your answer, please also include what Marcus Felson meant when he stated the “chemistry for crime.” ___________________________________________________________ “Choosing Crime in Everyday Life” is an appropriate title for this chapter because opportunity theorists are concerned with crime—the actual behavioral act of breaking the law—rather than criminality, which are qualities developed overtime. Their focus is not to find out what has occurred in an individual’s past [i.e. criminality] that caused them to commit a crime, but rather they seek to find what is occurring in an individual’s present situation that leads them to criminal behavior. Opportunity theorists reject the notion that criminals are pushed and pulled into criminal behavior.
In it’s simplest definition, victimology is the study of the victim or victims of a particular offender (Wallace & Roberson 2011: 3). However, two other definitions expound deeper into victimology: (1) victimology is the study of crime victims and the psychological effects of being a victim (Def, Random House Dictionary, 2011), and (2) victimology is the study of the ways in which the behavior of crime victims may have or have not contributed to their victimization (Def, Merriam-Webster, 2011). The early works about victims were first written by criminologist, as early as the mid 1700’s. The term victimology was coined by Beniamin Mendelsohn in 1974 (Dussich, 2000). Several criminologist (Hentig, Mendelsohn and Ellenberger) examined victim-offender interactions and stressed reciprocal influences and role reversals.
Holmes & Holmes (2009, p290) stated “To appraise a crime without some knowledge of the victim is certainly remiss.” The victim constitutes half of the crime therefore victimology should be heavily looked at in order to connect them to the offender (Douglas, Burgess, Burgess, & Ressler, 1992).Victimology is important to an investigation process in that, it is not just learning about the victim’s personal history and personality, but it also why the victim was chosen (Petherick, 2010). Holmes and Holmes (2009,p 291) created a list of elements which should be important to victim profiling it includes: "Physical traits, marital status, personal lifestyle, occupation, education, personal demographics, medical history, psychosexual history, court history, and last activities." A victim’s lifestyle, preferences, family, relationships, and routines, can give investigators clues about potential suspects who had access to the victim (Brown & Davenport, 2012). Other concepts that should be considered when victim profiling are the method of approach, method of attack and risk assessment (Turvey, 1999). Con, surprise, and blitz are three methods of approach that an offender will use to capture his victim.
For instance, you called the police because your husband just assaulted you. This example was used because the mindset that most couples have is that the police should never be called in order to address a domestic violence situation; thus, the victim of this type of violence suffers on a consistent basis. Law-enforcement involvement with minorities is rarely voluntary. Most minorities only call the police as a last resort; therefore, when the police are called the situation is usually out of control. The main reason presented for minority citizens not calling for police assistance is the belief that everyone involved in the situation will be arrested.
He believes that the positivist scientific method could be applied to the study of crime so as to find out its causes and prevent it. His particular approach was described as criminal anthropology. He compared the known offenders and a control group of soldiers by the post-mortem measurement and examination. After studying the resulting, Lombroso think that there a correlation between certain physical features, such as an asymmetrical face, large jaws and long arms, and criminality. In his opinion, these physical traits were characteristic of an earlier period of human evolution.