Criminology Statistics: The Shortcomings Of Crime Statistics

Crime within today’s society is recorded for analysis through criminological statistics. These statistics can be used for a number of reasons, some of which include, police performance assessment, the evaluation of crime prevention programs and crime trend forecasting (Morgan & Clare 2012, pp 25-52). However, due to substantial weaknesses in the methods in the way crime statistics are gathered it is highly likely that the data often does not represent the true rates of criminal activity emerging within each area (Morgan & Clare 2012, pp 25-52, Weatherburn, D 2001 pp 416-420). Thus, this research essay will explore the discrepancies and shortcomings of three common methods of gathering criminological statistics. These methods will include official

67-72). Developed in the late 1960s, crime surveys conduct a questionnaire on a sample population regarding their experience with crime over the last 12 months (Morgan & Clare 2012, pp 25-52). A predominant issue concerning crime victim surveys is the unwillingness of the sample population to disclose they were victims of crime (Morgan & Clare 2012, pp 25-52). For instance, the 2014-15 crime victim survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, revealed there were 58 600 reports of sexual assault, accounting for a 0.03% victimisation rate in Australia (ABS 2014). However, upon understanding that a recent statement released by the Lancet medical journal and the United Nations in 2014 specifies a total of 16.4% of Australian women were victims of sexual assault (Anderson, S 2015 and Abrahams, N et al. 2014), it is evident that there is a substantial number of the crime survey population refusing to divulge they were victims of sexual assault. Additionally, there is further criticism that many of the population included in the crime survey may not understand the exact definition of the criminal offences that are used throughout the survey or what they encompass (Morgan & Clare 2012, pp 25-52). For example, continuing with the focus of sexual assault, the crime victim survey completed in 2014-2015 defined sexual assault

67-72). This is the data that is recorded by emergency services such as ambulance, the fire department or hospital emergency rooms (HRC 2004, pp. 67-72). A significant concern with this type of data is that it only records statistics regarding a small selection of crimes due to the nature of the offence (Morgan & Clare 2012, pp 25-52). For example, accident data mainly reports drink driving offences due to the higher inclination of a drink driver being involved in a collision (Morgan & Clare 2012, pp 25-52). Whereas hospital emergency rooms predominantly report crimes regarding illicit drugs as many of those acquiring and using illegal substances having a higher chance of seeking medical attention for adverse effects or overdoses (Morgan & Clare 2012, pp 25-52). This not only significantly decreases the ability of criminologist to gather statistics on a variety of criminal offences, but also has questionable reliability due to many of the offences not requiring accident and emergency services, hence going unreported. Similarly, the subjectivity of the definitions of crime is also a further disadvantage for this method (AIC 2012 and Morgan & Clare 2012, pp 25-52). The different way in which emergency service officers categorised events or accidents into offence types, plays a large role in the statistical representation of crime (Morgan & Clare 2012, pp 25-52). Thus,