Crime Victim Interaction

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Crime Victim Interaction

• Crime reporting and intervention

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British Crime Survey Victimisation surveys.

• This survey selects 40,000 households by using
  delivery post codes, with the aim of interviewing
  one person aged 16 years or older from each
  household.
• The survey achieves an 80 per cent success rate
  in striving to achieve that particular sample.
• Latest versions have ethnic minority sub samples
  to improve representativeness.

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Across studies a consistent pattern of findings
emerges.

• The most notable is the extent of crime, as
  Sparks's notes 'Criminal victimization is an
  extremely rare event. . . crimes of violence are
  extremely uncommon' (1981).
• Indeed, Hough and Mayhew (1983) estimate that the
  'statistically average' person over the age of 16
  years can expect to be burgled once every 40
  years, and to be robbed once every 500 years

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Sparks (1981)

• Estimates about 90 per cent, report no experience
  of crime.
• On the other hand, some people report being
  involved in a series of incidents, having been
  the victims of two, three, four, or even more
  crimes.
• This leads to the important distinction between
  the
• incidence of victimisation
• and the prevalence of victimisation.

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Incidence and prevalence

• The incidence is the average crime rate over the
  whole population the prevalence is that
  percentage of the population who actually
  experience crime.
• Thus surveys reveal that burglaries are most
  prevalent in inner city areas cars parked on the
  street at night are more likely to be stolen and
  that it is not the elderly but young males, who
  typically have assaulted others themselves, who
  are the most likely victims of assault.

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Evaluative points

• Victim surveys provide a good picture of the type
  and amount of crime but they are not without
  drawbacks.
• The figures they produce will always
  underestimate the amount of crime they focus on
  offences against the person and against property,
  omitting the whole area of 'white-collar crime
  such as fraud and embezzlement (e.g. Levi 1984).

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Evaluative points

• The problems of respondent accuracy, as with
  offender surveys, also apply to victim surveys.
  E.g. Truthfulness
• Other factors such as the type of interview (by
  telephone or in person), interviewer
  characteristics (such as age and sex).
• Similarly Sparks et at. (1977) found that the
  amount of crime reported was related to the
  respondent's level of educational achievement.

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Evaluative points

• Nevertheless, the figures produced by crime
  surveys are an important source of information
  about crime as such they therefore have great
  potential for shaping theories of crime and
  influencing political and social policies towards
  managing and controlling crime.

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Evaluative points

• In summary, surveys of both offenders and victims
  confirm that the Dark Figure (unreported crime
  rape, fraud etc.) exists, and that it is
  substantially greater than official figures.
• However, given the methodological limitations of
  surveys, it is prudent to exercise caution in
  attempting to ascribe exact numerical values to
  the Dark Figure.

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What is the incidence of crime?

• The latest British Crime Survey- You have this
  or can get a summary on-line.

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Offender surveys

• These are surveys based on a sample of
  individuals with a criminal record.
• Using a sample of 137 male sexual offenders,
  Groth et al (1982) asked them about the number of
  sexual offences committed.
• Their confidentiality was assured.
• The researchers found many undetected offences -
  an average of five for each offender.
• This suggests that sexual offences could be
  severely under-recorded by the police.

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An alternative method

• Ask individuals without criminal records if they
  have committed undetected offences.
• Furnham and Thompson (1991) found that 88 of
  undergraduates asked had drunk alcohol under the
  age of sixteen, and 74 had viewed an '18'
  certificate film under age.
• Most of the offences were trivial, with only 1
  admitting to theft. However, there is always the
  question as to whether these types of
  self-reported surveys are accurate.
• Individuals could exaggerate or not admit to
  some crimes.

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Belson (1975)

• A British study of theft conducted by Belson
  (1975) illustrates a typical survey.
• A sample of 1,445 boys, aged from 13 to 16
  years, was randomly selected from a large sample
  of London households.
• Interviews with the boys revealed that
  approximately 70 per cent of the sample had
  stolen from a shop, and about 17 per cent had
  stolen from private premises.
• Thus the majority of boys had committed an
  offence for which, had they been caught, they
  would have been liable to prosecution.

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The general picture.

• It emerges from the self-report studies, is that
  the official figures underestimate the true
  extent of crime, especially amongst the young.
• Indeed, Hood and Sparks (1970) suggest that the
  official figures represent on average only
  one-quarter of those who actually commit
  offences in other words, they estimate that the
  Dark Figure is actually about four times greater
  than the official figure.

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Evaluative points

• Critics of self-report studies pointed to several
  shortcomings, the principal one being confidence
  in the veracity (truthfulness) of the data.
• Does the respondent always tell the truth?
• Are some crimes withheld, others invented or
  exaggerated?

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Evaluative points

• Further research showed that a number of
  interviewer and interviewee characteristics
  could influence the quality of information
• age,
• sex,
• socio-economic status
• and race

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Evaluative points

• Additionally there may be sampling problems
• if a survey is carried out at a school, for
  example, it will lose those absent or playing
  truant - who may be engaged in committing the
  more serious crimes.

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Evaluative points

• Advocates of self-report studies pointed to the
  advantages of the methodology in that it not only
  gives a picture of crime involving victims, but
  also includes'victimless' crimes such as drug
  abuse and vandalism.
• Such doubts led a number of investigators to
  refine the self-report methodology to include
  reliability checks on the data.

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Evaluative points

• The most frequently used verification technique
  is to compare self-report with police records.
• Studies using this check have found high degrees
  of agreement between the two measures of
  offending (Blackmore 1974).
• Other verification methods include using peer
  informants to ensure reports match testing
  respondents twice to determine if their answers
  remain constant and including lie questions in
  the schedule as a general check on honesty.

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Evaluative points

• Hindelang et el. (1981), following a
  comprehensive review of self-report methodology,
  conclude that the match is a good one between
  self-report data and official recording.
• However, despite the assurances of researchers
  such as Hindelang et el, the trend in recent
  times has moved away from offender surveys to
  victim surveys.
• One reason for this is that not only can victim
  surveys reveal information about crime, but also
  they can be used to gather data on other issues
  such as public attitudes towards crime and public
  fear of crime.

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The end