Defining and measuring crime
- Created by: Georgia
- Created on: 01-05-19 10:19
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- Problems in defining crime
- Culture; crime differs in every country
- What may be considered a crime in one country may be legal in another
- e.g. Bigamy is illegal in the UK but legal in many US states
- What may be considered a crime in one country may be legal in another
- Age; can a child know what is right or wrong?
- Cannot use same rules for children and adults as they have different understanding of the world
- Context; how have laws changed over history?
- Something may be considered a crime now but not in the past (vice versa)
- e.g. Homosexuality used to be illegal but is now legal
- Something may be considered a crime now but not in the past (vice versa)
- Circumstance; what is the situation in which the crime was committed?
- Actus reus; crime is a voluntary act (action)
- Mens rea; intention to do a criminal act (psychological element)
- Culture; crime differs in every country
- Ways of measuring crime
- Official statistics
- Monitor every single recorded crime in England and Wales
- Lack validity as not every crime is recorded by the police (unrepresentative)
- Lack reliability as different locations may consider what a crime is differently
- Factual whereas others are opinion-based
- Offender surveys
- Can detect crimes that have escaped police attention
- Likely to be biased due to under-reporting of serious crimes
- "Dark side" of crime
- Serious offences are removed from frame so unrepresentative sample
- Completed by recent offenders about recent crimes
- Victim surveys
- Examines prevalence of crime and trends; survey about experiences of crime
- Large sample so representative
- Considered the most accurate measure
- Records incidents that police may ignore so removes bias
- Only samples individuals so ignores white-collar
- Official statistics
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