Chapter Summary

• Crime has costs. There are the financial costs to the public purse in paying for the elements of the criminal justice system – the police, courts, prison and probation – as well as costs to the NHS, employers and so on.
• Alongside financial costs, crime produces human costs in the physical and psychological suffering experienced by victims, and social costs as in the shared distress of the victim’s friends and family.
• It is difficult to measure the true extent of crime. There are three methods that are used to try to estimate the numbers of crimes: (1) official statistics; (2) offender surveys; (3) victim surveys.
• The British Crime Survey (BCS) is a large-scale victim survey that takes place at frequent intervals.
• The BCS reveals that for most people in Britain victimisation is a rare occurrence, although some people are repeatedly victimised, and most crimes are relatively minor with serious violent crime particularly unusual.

Reading List

The criminal statistics provide the basic information about levels and types of crime that are prevalent in society and from which we can begin to construct a picture of criminal activity. However, understanding what the figures mean is not always straightforward: the texts below help to show the strengths and weaknesses inherent in attempting to measure crime.

Chaplin, R., Flatley, J., & Smith, K. (Eds.). (2011). Crime in England and Wales 2010/11. Findings from the British Crime Survey and police recorded crime (2nd ed.). Home Office Statistical Bulletin, 10/11. London: Home Office.

Coleman, C., & Moynihan, J. (1996). Understanding crime data: Haunted by the dark figure. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Maguire, M. (2012). Criminal statistics and the construction of crime. In M. Maguire, R. Morgan, & R. Reiner (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of criminology (5th ed.) (pp. 206–244). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Reiner, R. (2007). Law and order: An honest citizen’s guide to crime and control. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Weblinks

Australian Institute of Criminology: http://www.aic.gov.au/

British Crime Survey: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/science-research/research-statistics/crime/crime-statistics/british-crime-survey/

European Commission, Eurostat: http://epp.eurostats.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/crime/data/database/

FBI Crime Statistics: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

Home Office: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/

Ministry of Justice: http://www.justice.gov.uk/

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: http://www.unodc.org/

Study Questions

Open Questions

Why does crime cost so much in financial terms?

Why is it so difficult to measure the amount of crime?

Is it the case that police recording of crime is invariably accurate?