AC1.6 Writeup
There are two types of methods to collecting statistics about crime: Home Office Official
Statistics and the Crime Survey England and Wales (CSEW). The official statistics are
compiled by the government and gain their information by looking at the number of crimes
reported to the police, these would then be separated into their specific type of crime, and
statistics are produced. The CSEW, however, gains their information by randomly asking
around 50,000 people over the age of 16 and in private households, about crime and their
experiences with crime from the past year. The CSEW also surveys these people on their
personal perception of crime.
The Home Office Statistics have several advantages which the CSEW don’t have, one
advantage would be that the home office stats include those under the age of 16 where as
CSEW only asks those 16 and over. This is an advantage as it allows there to be more variety
with age ranges so the findings can be generalised further then CSEW stats as they miss out
a key age range; it also allows crimes such as child exploitation to be discovered more easily
as well as drug use, since it mainly is teenagers and young people who are involved with
such moral crimes. Another advantage of the home office stats is that they are compiled by
an independent body within the government, this is an advantage as if there is an entire
body dedicated to compiling statistics then it is more likely to be reliable and valid since
everyone puts trust in the government and trusts they will produce the most accurate
statistics in order to make society safer by prioritising problem areas.
However, the home office stats also have many limitations which CSEW are better with. A
disadvantage would be that they don’t consider unrecorded crimes, unrecorded crimes are
when a report is filed to the police, but the police choose not to record it for a certain
reason which could be not enough leads or less priority. This is a disadvantage as it means
there could be so many crimes that have been reported but because they weren’t recorded,
they won’t be involved in the statistics, thus reducing the validity of the results and making
it so they can’t generalise the statistics as it wouldn’t be an accurate depiction since many
crimes probably won’t have been included due to them being unrecorded. It would give a
skewed depiction of crime which would deceive the public and numerous crimes could
continue to spike and the public wouldn’t even realise due to these certain crimes going
unrecorded. It would also confuse the victims whose crime went unrecorded and they will
have thought their crime was recorded and impacted the statistics when in actuality: it did
not. Another disadvantage is that police prioritisation and recording of stats can differ and
vary in different places. For example, police recording figures in Nottinghamshire are more
likely than other regions to record thefts of under £10 and could account for the ‘spike’ in
this area. This creates a skewed image of where crime is happening in the UK and which
crimes need to be prioritised as there is no consistency due to the variation in certain areas.
This makes it difficult for the government to implement new changes to combat problems
since nothing is standardised.
There are two types of methods to collecting statistics about crime: Home Office Official
Statistics and the Crime Survey England and Wales (CSEW). The official statistics are
compiled by the government and gain their information by looking at the number of crimes
reported to the police, these would then be separated into their specific type of crime, and
statistics are produced. The CSEW, however, gains their information by randomly asking
around 50,000 people over the age of 16 and in private households, about crime and their
experiences with crime from the past year. The CSEW also surveys these people on their
personal perception of crime.
The Home Office Statistics have several advantages which the CSEW don’t have, one
advantage would be that the home office stats include those under the age of 16 where as
CSEW only asks those 16 and over. This is an advantage as it allows there to be more variety
with age ranges so the findings can be generalised further then CSEW stats as they miss out
a key age range; it also allows crimes such as child exploitation to be discovered more easily
as well as drug use, since it mainly is teenagers and young people who are involved with
such moral crimes. Another advantage of the home office stats is that they are compiled by
an independent body within the government, this is an advantage as if there is an entire
body dedicated to compiling statistics then it is more likely to be reliable and valid since
everyone puts trust in the government and trusts they will produce the most accurate
statistics in order to make society safer by prioritising problem areas.
However, the home office stats also have many limitations which CSEW are better with. A
disadvantage would be that they don’t consider unrecorded crimes, unrecorded crimes are
when a report is filed to the police, but the police choose not to record it for a certain
reason which could be not enough leads or less priority. This is a disadvantage as it means
there could be so many crimes that have been reported but because they weren’t recorded,
they won’t be involved in the statistics, thus reducing the validity of the results and making
it so they can’t generalise the statistics as it wouldn’t be an accurate depiction since many
crimes probably won’t have been included due to them being unrecorded. It would give a
skewed depiction of crime which would deceive the public and numerous crimes could
continue to spike and the public wouldn’t even realise due to these certain crimes going
unrecorded. It would also confuse the victims whose crime went unrecorded and they will
have thought their crime was recorded and impacted the statistics when in actuality: it did
not. Another disadvantage is that police prioritisation and recording of stats can differ and
vary in different places. For example, police recording figures in Nottinghamshire are more
likely than other regions to record thefts of under £10 and could account for the ‘spike’ in
this area. This creates a skewed image of where crime is happening in the UK and which
crimes need to be prioritised as there is no consistency due to the variation in certain areas.
This makes it difficult for the government to implement new changes to combat problems
since nothing is standardised.
