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Weaknesses in official crime stats
Source and limitations of crime statistics
Weaknesses in official crime stats
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Many people are reluctant to report all types of crimes for a multitude of reasons. Non-reported crime is coined as the dark figure of crime. This can be dangerous as well as misinterpretation by statistics because not only does the offender get to walk free and continue but statistics about crime are usually from police departments and agencies that use formal complaints. The dark figure of crime contains so much more data that the general public is unaware of especially with the most underreported crime, rape.
There are many factors that play into reporting a crime for the victim. Being scared that the offender will retaliate because of the report as well as being embarrassed to even admit the crime had occurred can play into the victim’s
Exploring Why a Large Number of Crimes Aren't Reported. For the large number of crimes that are committed, the biggest. percentage of them is not reported to the police or authorities. This could be due to several reasons.
A strong example of this would be the recent exploits at the Woodstock 99 music festival.
In contemporary society, there are various methodologies for collecting data (Linden 2012). That being said, there are pros and cons to each that are based on reliability and validity; where reliability is consistency of the statistics, and validity is a measure of how accurate the results are in accordance with the research topic. This ties in with how this paper will explore the Uniform Crime Report system (UCR); a measure of crime that is used the most. UCR statistics reflect the crimes that are reported to the police throughout the country. victimization and self-report surveys, which are statistics that reinforce the findings revealed by the UCR, will also be explored. Lastly, the issue of media coverage of crime news will be examined.
In the documentary Crime After Crime, Deborah Peagler suffered abuse from her intimate partner through her life. The abuse started in High School. When her mother introduced her to Oliver Wilson, his charming personality fooled everyone. Oliver forced her into prostitution to make money for him. When she refused, he beat her until she promised to sell herself. The beating gradationally evolved to bull whipping. In addition, all of this occurred during her junior and senior year in high school. Oliver felt it was his right to have ultimate control over Deborah, this fact is generally accepted in the society (Belknap 247). The male dominance, male authority over women is something taught to young children. It is sought to be the place of women to wait for the husband by the door when he comes home. The male masculinity fact kicked in and it drove him to force his dominance over Deborah into physical abuse. When Deborah refused to do his bidding, he felt it was necessary for him to show her who is in control by beating her. This is the message sent to young boys of past generations and a bit less for the current one through media and entertainment.
When the victim does not fit the ideal victim attributes which society has familiarised themselves with, it can cause complications and confusion. Experts have noticed there is already a significant presence of victim blaming, especially for cases involving both genders. The fear of being blamed and rejected by the public is prominent in all victims. Victim blaming proclaims the victim also played a role in the crime by allowing the crime to occur through their actions (Kilmartin and Allison, 2017, p.21). Agarin (2014, p.173) underlines the problem of victim blaming is due to the mass of social problems and misconceptions within society. The offender can have “an edge in court of public opinion” if victim blaming exists, resulting in the prevention of the case accomplishing an effective deduction in court (Humphries, 2009, p.27). Thus, victims will become more reluctant to report offences because of their decrease in trust in the police and criminal justice system, leading to the dark figure of
...lly relies mostly on the media for their information regarding crimes in their neighborhoods. The media tends to only broadcast certain information about these occurrences in an attempt to boost the ratings for the news station. The public doesn't get an unbiased opinion of what actually occurred or a chance to know all of the facts. In reality, crimes that are reported are only a fraction of what in fact occurs. Crime statistics do not actually reflect patterns in crime or a risk of victimization and are of little or no use to the public in determining the crime rates for any given neighborhood. Since crime statistics only represent reported crime and not actual crime occurrences they should never be considered exact at any time. Statistical information is available upon request from the government and should only be considered an estimate of the true crime rates.
In the 20 elements victims are given several options on how they want to tell their story, and they can control when and how they do it. The second theme was people want the authorities to be neutral. For example, victims do not want to be judged or blamed. A major problem with reporting sexual assaults for victims is they often get or feel blamed for the assault. Research by Elliot, Thomas, and Ogloff (2012) also gave insight that non-blaming attitudes on the part of the police are deemed to be important to
This would be true by way of the fact that people are not reporting these crimes
Crime occurs everywhere around the world, it is something that is inevitable and sadly cannot be stopped from occurring in our everyday life. There are various tools that give us statistics on crime that have occurred, one of those various tools is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The NCVS is an essential source of information on victims being victimized by criminals. Most of the time many of these crimes that occurred do get reported and some don't. The NCVS not only obtains information on any type of assault, but it also obtains crimes that have occurred in someone's household (arson, burglary..) NCVS is a self-report survey
Violent crimes are rare. For every 1,000 people, there is less than one percent of crime. There is also a two percent instance of property crimes in Apex, per 1,000 people.
Crimes that are not being accounted for are the result of victims not having trust in the system to come forward or
In chapter 2 this article discusses The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and its issues with accurate reporting. It explains how the NCVS is one of the oldest and largest crime victimization studies to date. Also, the NCVS is used widely throughout the United States as a reference point on statistics on crime and crime victimization. The NCVS methods on these surveys are conducting interviews both in person and over the phone of those who have reported being a victim of a crime. This article explains the errors that come along with
As I combed through the violent crime data for my area, I realized there is a lot of discrepancies and unreported crimes. I started to think why would there be so much unreported crimes and I realize a few things: 1) law enforcement agencies do not take it seriously to report crimes to the Uniform Crime Reports 2) many victims do not report their crimes and 3) crime reporting needs to be uniformed and mandatory. The violent crime statistics in my area are quite alarming and yet shocking.
When asked about crime, my immediate thought is ‘devastating’. It can be devastating to everyone in the situation; not only to the victim but also to the victimizer. Families and loved ones can also be affected. Crime can be detrimental to the physical exterior and on the mental state. Crime can cause a never ending cycle of trauma, violence, and hostility. It all begins with one person being wronged. There is only so much a person can take before all their hurt turns into anger; an emotion that is hard to contain for most people. Their past experiences negatively fuel their present actions. Thus, crime is established. These actions of violence and abuse can not be undone but they can be learned from.