Official statistics debate

Stats gathered by:
Government collects data from police.
Commissions research project from university researchers and teachers.
Other agencies concerned with crime gather statistics.
Stats as a social construct:
They appear to be fact
Stats are not fully reliable as they are socially constructed by the people who gather the data.
Domestic Violence:
More cases now than in the 70's.
Is there violence?
The police did not act on reports of domestic violence and many women regarded as a 'normal' part marriage.
Jock Young (1994)
Laws have been created, often quickly and without forethought, in response to moral panics.
Included various laws against terrorism.
Stephen Moore:
Police play a very significant part in the social construct of crime and deviance because it is they who record reported crime.
Atkinson:
Criticised Durkheim's theory of suicide.
Coroners create a definition of a typical suicide and then categorise individual…

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