Outline and Assess Different Measures of Crime and Deviance

When measuring crime and deviance sociologists use three different means, those are official statistics, self-report studies and victim surveys. These methods of collecting data have both strong points and weak points, but by combining them a possible general picture of crime and deviance could be drawn. The sociological theories have varying perspectives on the usefulness of generating measurable crime statistics and the validity of each method. Firstly official statistics are compiled and then published every 6 months by the Home Office, and are drawn from records kept by the police and other official agencies. But due to the fact that official statistics are only compiled from crime that has been reported leading to someone being charged and convicted of that crime those crimes that go unreported are obviously not included. By use of official statistics we can see trends in crime throughout history, which crime rates are rising and which are falling and from that starting point we can work out the reasons for this change. In my opinion though official statistics may not be able to cover every crime as not all is recorded it can still gives us a starting point when looking for crime trends and the sociological reasons behind that. For example we can see through looking at the downloadable PDF Social Trends 40 that crimes such as theft, vandalism and household crime have increased from last year and through further statistics we can see that gang activity has also increased we can then put two and two together to show us why these crimes are increasing through use of the official statistics. Feminists would argue that crimes that stereotypically affect women (such as domestic abuse or rape) are not covered in these statistics, as the women are too embarrassed or scared to come forward. As a result of this, feminists believe the statistics are not a realistic reflection on domestic or spousal abuse rates as the husbands or boyfriends are not being brought to justice. Similarly Marxists would argue that official statistics are incorrect but the Marxists argue that there wrong due to the fact that the bourgeoisie have manipulated them to create scapegoats. By creating scapegoats of the working classes the bourgeoisie can divide the proletariat making it easier for the capitalists to continue controlling them. Furthermore the under class are more strictly policed than the oppressive ruling class and therefore it looks on statistics that the working class are more prone to crime. This argument, like most of Marxism, is slightly reductionist as not every sociological issue can be so easily simplified to just the bourgeoisie oppressing the proletariat or capitalisms greed. The second method used to measure crime and deviance is a self-report study. A self report study would be a survey which would interview a number of people on their relationship with crime, this would be done through either an opportunity sample or through volunteers and the interview would most likely be structured or semi-structured. The usefulness of a self-report study is that it could reveal what are seen as ‘victimless crimes’ (such as drug use or under age drinking etc. ) or crimes that go unreported. This would then be able to compensate for the official statistics lack of these crimes, and then by combining the two give us a broader picture of crime in the UK. Another advantage of a self report study is that we can not only learn what crimes people commit but also we can see what age, ethnicity or social class there in showing us what members of our society are more likely to commit a certain crime. But by using a self-report study demand characteristics and socially desirable answers come into play. Because in contrast to the official statistics which are gathered from data which can be presumed to be true, self report studies rely on face-to-face interviews which gives people the opportunity to lie or to give an answer which they believe the interviewer will find pleasing. But this method does yield results, for example Bilton was able to show that 50 to 90% of the people he interviewed had committed a crime that could have landed them in court. This use of the self-report study helps us to see how much crime goes unreported or unnoticed and therefore how unrealistic the official crime statistics actually are. Similarly West and Farrington, who also did a self report study but on deviance rather than crime, found that a high percentage of those interviewed had engaged in, what society perceives as, a deviant. For example they found that 90% of interviewees admitted to having travelled on a train without a ticket, also 82% had broken a window of an empty house. But also West and Farmington’s study found that like Biltons the official statistics had missed out all crime – this is obvious as 40% admitted to stolen something from a shop and of that 40% only 8. % had been prosecuted of it. Victim surveys are the opposite to self report studies as instead of being asked about crimes you’ve committed a person is asked whether they have ever been a victim of crime, samples are taken on either a large scale (nationally) or on a small scale (locally). Through victim surveys, especially large ones such as the British Crime Survey, we are able to see any pattern or trends in victi misation that we wouldn’t have been able to see in the previous two methods. Victim surveys can show us if any race, age, social class or genders are more likely to targeted for a specific crime. Jock Young, a New Left Realist, did the first victim survey in Islington, it was able to show that the reason residents feared leaving the house was of the violent gangs committing crime and threatening those who tried to stop it. Victim surveys are able to provide the interviewee without a great deal of confidence as they can remain completely anonymous if they choose, in theory this should eliminate people being too scared or too embarrassed to admit to being a victim of crime. But this is not always the case, some people might find it too hard to admit to even themselves that they’ve been a victim of a crime, especially crimes such as rape or abuse. This altering of the truth is different from that seen sometimes in self-report studies as those lies are usually told to make the interviewee feel better or harder about them self (as nowadays committing crime is seen as ‘cool’ especially among youths). Similarly to official statistics Feminists would argue that lack of women admitting to being victims of sexual or physical abuse is due to the patriarchal society we live in and the male dominance seen throughout it. But victim surveys could be seen as possibly unreliable as, unlike in official statistics, experts do not do the categorization of crimes it is the interviewers themselves who may be skilled sociologists but are not trained specifically in the act of categorizing crime. This means that similar crimes can not be compared with the statistics as there may have been confusion over the classification; thus making it difficult to measure the crime. In my opinion the most logical way in which we should use the measures of crime and deviance is by using all of them together, instead of separately. Through this we will get a broader and clearer picture of crime in the UK as each method covers various holes in the other methods data. For example the official statistics may give us data on the reported crimes there is no way of knowing how many crimes go unreported, but through self-report studies can begin to see a general figure of unreported crimes.