Government agencies use these reports to document crime and do further research on crime in the nation. After a few years of reporting with the first program created, the UCR or Uniform Crime Reporting Program, another program had evolved from that having the FBI designated to coordinate the latest program, NIBRS or the Nation Incident Based Reporting System. With the UCR you could not differentiate between misdemeanor and felony crimes, so the NIBRS was created to gather more in depth and detailed crime data. The NIBRS collects detailed data on every single crime occurrence. Along with those programs came the NCVS or National Crime Victimization Survey, this survey is a self-reporting survey which victims report their own incidents.
In assessing the question “Are official statistics a reliable source of information about crime in Britain?” several factors will be considered: including how the statistics are collected, the divide between males and females in crime statistics, the over representation of ethnic minorities and any problems in looking at the true extent of crime using statistics as an indicator for this. In the United Kingdom statistics are produced by the Home Office, the first crime statistics were published in 1976, and contained crimes recorded by the police. Today these statistics are published annually. These statistics make up the British Crime Survey, which measures the amount of crime in England and Wales by asking people about crimes they have experienced in the last year. 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.
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.
Identify any assumptions on which your personal perception is based and answer the following questions: How would you describe or define organized crime? How does your perception compare to the definitions presented in the readings? What are the various characteristics you would consider to be associated with organized criminal behavior? Properly cite your references or resources according to APA guidelines. Discussion Questions Describe what you think the type of person comes to mind when you read each of the subjects.
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.
Typology for crime uses defined characteristics, such as motivation, situation, behavior-both victim and offender-, and aspects unique to the offense. 2. What are the key issues to be considered in explaining patterns of homicide? * When trying to explain homicide, socio-demographics need to be examined. Using cultural norms, weapons availability, gang activity, geographic region, victim-offender relationship, as well as individual characteristics as considerations can give a much greater idea of statistics and causes.
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.
on the modality in Respond to weekly discussion questions. | 12/ development and operation of policing? How do past and current trends help policing organizations plan and forecast for future trends? What would happen if policing organizations failed to successfully analyze and plan for the future based on past and present trends? * What are the prevailing theories of crime control as it is applies to policing?
In order to comprehend why race, age and income have the potential to affect criminal victimization, the authors portray five main risk factors which are: exposure, guardianship, proximity to potential offenders, attractiveness of targets and definitional properties of specific crimes. Exposure is presented as the palpable accessibility of victims to plausible offenders, such as activities and lifestyles that may favour victimization. Further, frequent contact between victim and potential offender increases the opportunity for the offender to commit an aggression against property. Proximity to crime represents how close the victim residence is to potential offenders, particularly to high crime areas. Therefore, houses located in conflicting areas have an increased risk of being victimized.
Sociology's emphasis in criminology uses complex sociological theories in order to analyze, explain and overall prevent criminal behavior within societies social structure, laws, processes, and actions. When it comes to the study of behavior there are a few theories that set out to understand the scientific study of law breaking we refer to as criminology. Serious attempts are made to define and describe the causes of criminal activity which has a core objective of analyzing crime as a social phenomenon . My first paper of this semester will contain and discuss how basic sociological theories such as functionalism, conflict and symbolic interactionism impact the sociological institution of criminology and the process of making laws, breaking laws, and reacting to the breaking of these laws. In addition to these theories there are as many as 10 other theories includig an array of approaches to the understanding of criminology through classical and strain theory as well as biological, psychological, feminist and labeling perspectives to name a few.