Outline and assess the usefulness of official statistics in measuring crime Essay

Sociology precis and assess the usefulness of authorized statistics in criterion disgust. Crime is basically any sort of deportment or an act which breaks laws of a society and is penalize by the legal system. What is considered deplorable or unnatural is culturally determined. This room that what is considered criminal or abnormal changes with time and place, as the values, norms and expectations change. What may non be acceptable in one society at a particular time may be acceptable in a nonher country or acceptable at another time, for example do drugs cafes in Amsterdam.Police Crime Figures book been save and published annually by the Home placement since the year 1857. Crime statistics argon compiled in the foot of offences notified to the police. In this respect, they provide evidence of crimes that be k instantaneouslyn to the police and officially recorded by the police. appointed statistics are useful in mensuration crime because they allow us to spot tr ends and patterns in the crime rates and the social background of criminals/ victims (quantative selective information).Also, these statistics tending in clear government policy. Theories alike functionalism have employ official statistics to augment theories to explain patterns in the official statistics. Durkheim used statistics to measure suicide rates, a form of divergence between societies and groups and developed theories almost suicide. Others, like Merton assumed that the statistics were valid and tried and true and went on to develop explanations about working-class criminality.Many people now turn to victim Surveys such as the British Crime Survey (BCS) as more reliable originations of information. Victim Surveys are so called because they get hold of a sample of the population what crimes they have been a victim in the previous 12 months. This increases validity as they include all crimes that people have been a victim of, regardless of whether or not they infor m the crime to the police. A number of crimes are not parcel outed by the survey. These include crimes against business, crimes where there is no direct victim, such as possession of drugs, crimes against victims at a lower place 16 and crimes that have involved death. other source of survey data on crime and deviance is self-report studies,where people are asked if they have committed any crime. Self-report studies are similar to victim surveys except that they ask respondents to admit to crimes they have committed. This type of survey data are less widely used than BCS, further are also anonymous and representative of the population.Steven Box, a Marxist, analysed 40 self-report studies and concluded that juvenile crime was not a working-class problem but quite an that the middle-class were less likely to get caught. I view respondents may not tell the right because they may feel embarrassed, may exaggerate or they may have forgotten the offence.To conclude, I believe the of ficial statistics are very useful to us as they help to inform us about the rates of crime as well as government policy. They are annually published and anyone with net profit access backside view/download the data. These statistics cover a large part of the population and as they are collected by the state they are seen to have a great deal of validity.They can easily be compared to the previous statistics and their quantative nature allows trends and patterns to be established. The ability to go back and check the findings means that the data are reliable. However, there are or so disadvantages of official statistics. It is reported Official Crime Statistics provided show 30% of crimes committed.The other 70% is set forth as the Hidden Figure of Crime. Official crime statistics only show crime cognize to the police. In other words, not all crime is reported to the police. This may be because people may be reluctant to report a criminal incident if they do not have trust in the police to investigate and solve the crime. Another reason may be because they are scared, they could have been threatened by the criminal. Interactionism have a cast out view on official statistics, they believe it as being of little worth. Cicourel stated that police are more likely to suspect and arrest nearly people than other due to labelling.