Data on crime, including official statistics, victim surveys and self-report studies, the dark figure of unreported crime, and patterns of crime by age, class, gender and ethnicity.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to explain the three main ways of measuring crime, why official statistics are incomplete (the dark figure), and the patterns crime data show by age, class, gender and ethnicity, while recognising that those patterns may partly reflect bias rather than real offending. This is a quantitative-leaning topic, so you must be comfortable reasoning about how a real number of crimes shrinks as it passes through reporting and recording.

Three ways of measuring crime

Each method has strengths and weaknesses. Official statistics are cheap, cover the whole country and allow comparison over time, but they only count crime that is both reported and recorded, so they undercount. Victim surveys uncover unreported crime and give a fuller picture of common offences such as theft and assault, but they miss victimless crimes (such as drug use), crimes against organisations, and they rely on respondents remembering and answering honestly. Self-report studies reveal hidden offenders and the social background of offenders, but respondents may exaggerate or conceal what they have done, and they tend to focus on minor offences.

The dark figure of crime

Crime data therefore passes through two filters before it becomes a statistic. First, a crime must be reported, which depends on victims and witnesses choosing to come forward. Second, the police must record it, which depends on their judgement and recording practices. At each stage crime is lost, so the recorded figure is always smaller than the true figure. Victim surveys exist precisely to estimate the size of this dark figure by asking people directly rather than relying on what reached the police.

Patterns in the data

Crime statistics show clear and consistent patterns, although sociologists warn these may partly reflect bias in policing and recording rather than only real differences in offending:

• Age: recorded offending peaks in the teenage years and early twenties, then declines.
• Gender: far more recorded offenders are male than female; sociologists debate whether women genuinely commit less crime or are simply less likely to be caught and prosecuted.
• Class: more recorded offenders are working class, though this may reflect that the police focus on visible street crime rather than the white-collar and corporate crime of the better off.
• Ethnicity: some minority ethnic groups are over-represented in the statistics, which may reflect discrimination and stop-and-search practices in policing as much as real offending.