Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
1,087
AC 1.6 Evaluate the Methods of Collecting Statistics About Crime
This AC
Objectives
Looks at the way statistics about crime are collected
What is Required
Markband
Mark Band 1
Limited (may only list methods/sources of information) evaluation of methods of collecting information about crime. (1-3)
Mark Band 2
Clear and detailed evaluation of a range of methods/sources of information used to collect information about crime with clear evidence of reasoning. Detailed and relevant reference to specific sources. (4-6)
Evaluation Criteria
Criteria
Evaluation criteria
• Reliability
• Validity
• Ethics of research
• Strengths and Limitations
• Purpose of Research
Information about crime
• Home Office statistics
• Crime Survey for England & Wales
You Need To
What To Do
Evaluate the methods used to collect and present the two sources of information about crime given in the content. The evaluation should use the criteria specified in the content.
Methods
Methods
2 main methods for measuring and tracking crime trends,
1. Recorded crime statistics collected by the police (Home Office)
2. Crime Survey for England and Wales (Formerly called the British Crime Survey)
You need to make sure you comment on both methods throughout the evaluation in the assessment.
Police Recorded Crime
1
The Home Office provides Police Recorded Crime (PRC) in tables which contain recorded crime figures broken down by offence type, geography and time period.
This information can be accessed by the public.
*These figures can be affected by changes in recording policy and practice
Task
Go to the Police UK website http://www.police.uk/ type in your local postcode and look at the crimes in the local area. Consider which crimes the police should be focusing their resources.
Answer these:
- Are there any common crimes?
- Should resources be used to combat them?
- Are there serious offences that require resources?
- Should patrols be diverted to certain areas? eg Are certain streets being targeted for burglaries?
Then pick another area and do the same.
Answers will differ between localities
Issues with PRC
Issues
As of 2014 Police recorded crime data was assessed against the Code of Practice for Official Statistics and found not to meet the required standard for designation as National Statistics - What does this tell us?
Changes have been made to improve recording, so think how crime statistics could be affected - More crimes could be recorded
Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW)
2
The British Crime Survey became the Crime Survey for England and Wales in April 2012 - It did not cover Scotland or Northern Ireland
The CSEW is a 'Victim Survey' - surveys a representative sample of a population and asks a series of questions about their experience of crime.
Victim surveys started in USA, first one in the UK was 1972 which later became the British Crime Survey
This survey also covers crimes not reported to the police, which makes it a valuable and potentially more accurate than surveys that only look at reported crimes.
The Research
Conducting
- 2 versions of the survey - 1 for 10-15 year olds and 1 for those aged 16+
- Carried out in the home
- in 18/19 50,000 households were interviewed with a 75% response rate.
- Only samples England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate surveys.
- Looks at experiences and perceptions of crime
- Looks at nature of the crime including location and timing along with characteristics of the offender and relationship between offender and victim
- Includes questions on peoples attitudes towards crime-related topics such as anti-social behaviour, the police etc
- Not affected by reported crime or changes to the way police record crime
- Criminologists consider it to be a very reliable measure of the extent of vicimitimisation and trends over time.
TASK
Task
Go to https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingjune2021
Read the article, consider what it is measuring and telling you and then in your book, summarise in your own words what the CSEW is and what is its purpose.
Criteria
Criteria
We are going to look at
1. Reliability
2. Validity
3. Ethics of research
4. Strengths and limitations
5. Purpose of Research
Reliability
Reliability
Reliability is the consistency of results when the experiment is replicated under the same conditions.
Any statistic has its limitations and no source can tell us with complete accuracy what is happening with crime. The fact that the Crime Survey is now based on multiple sources shows that the police data alone must have it limitations.
Task
Read
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/jan/23/crime-england-wales-down-how-much
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25831906
and
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44397532
and record in your booklets reasons that could affect the reliability of the statistics.
Some Examples
Reasons
Police Recording
- Human Error - Lack of training or confusion
- Deliberate non-recording - Ensure performance targets are met.
CSEW
- Wording of questions - people may misinterpret the questions
- Context of questions
Could influence whether people are happy to participate.
Validity
Validity
Validity is described as the degree to which a research study measures what it intends to measure. If the results of a study are not deemed to be valid then they are meaningless to our study. If it does not measure what we want it to measure then the results cannot be used to answer the research question. If a crime survey is meant to record the amount of crime that has taken place it may not be valid. There are several reasons for this (think of an example for each)
1. The victim may be unaware of the offence
2. There may be no victim (perceived victimless)
3. People decide not to report a crime
4. Social attitudes towards different offences change
5. Reporting of an offence does not automatically mean it will be recorded by the police
Task
Task
Go onto the Office for National Statistics website. Read the ‘Accuracy of statistics’ section and summarise in the workbook their findings.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice
Ethics of Research
Ethics
The application of moral rules and professional codes of conduct to the collection, analysis, reporting, and publication of information about research subjects, in particular active acceptance of subjects' right to privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent. If you were the victim of a crime would you want all your personal details published?
CSEW
Crime Survey
For the CSEW aimed at 10 -15 year olds, there are less questions, lasts 15 - 20 mins and parental consent is obtained.
In general, questions can be skipped, personal information is kept confidential, names and addresses are not stored with the data, and care is taken to ensure individuals cant be identified from the results.
To ensure informed consent the CSEW gives an information leaflet stating what the survey will involve and how the data will be used
Strengths and Limitations
S&L
Every piece of research carried out will have its strengths and limitations.
Look at the table in your booklets which lists the strengths and limitations to both Police Recorded Crime and the Crime Survey for England and Wales and write in a few paragraphs (in your own words) the strengths and limitations of both.
Dark Figure of Crime
Dark Figure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzdTiM5wS_c
The dark figure of crime is the amount of crime which is unreported or unknown. There is a dark figure of crime which is committed, but does not appear in the criminal statistics. The total amount of crime in a community consists of crimes which are known or recorded and the dark figure of crime. Criminologists have used differing methods (like victimisation surveys) to try to decrease the amount of unknown (dark figure of crime) or unrecorded crime.
The 'dark figure' in the dark figure of crime is not some sinister character but a theory that postulates that we do not know how much crime is out there and with current methods of studying the phenomenon of crime we have no way of knowing the truth.
Purpose of Research
Purpose
The main reasons for collecting statistics about crime are:
- Provides trends in offending, especially where the 2 methods show similar results
- Allows the evaluation and development of crime reduction policies
- Informs resource management by government and police
- Enables the protection of potential victims
- Allows the public to voice their views
- Shows the police workload
- Shows the emergence of 'new' crimes eg Use of social media to spread hate
Recap
Recap
What are the 2 main methods for collecting statistics about crime?
What criteria must you cover?
Give an example of ethics
1 Strength and weakness of PRC
1 Strength and weakness of CSEW
What is the purpose of this research?