Are Official statistics on crime unreliable?

This essay hasn't yet been marked by one of our teachers

You can view 3 essays on Crime & Deviance that have been Marked by Teachers

The first 200 words of this essay...

Are Official statistics on crime unreliable? By Bethan Lind 10e

The Home Office produces the official crime figures. But are they always reliable? That is the question that needs to be answered. Sociologists use these figures because they are cheap and readily available i.e. The Internet. We have to take into account detecting, reporting, recording and policing because these can all affect the figures in different ways. The first thing that can affect the figures is a crime that isn't even noticed such as a petty theft. For example If a woman is carrying a purse containing £45 and a £5 note or change was stolen she probably wouldn't have noticed unless she counted the money first so therefore the crime cannot be reported so it cannot appear in the official statistics.

Next is reporting, the reason why some people do not report an incident to the police is because they either feel it is to sensitive for example rape or abuse or that they think that the police can do nothing about it so again if it is not reported it cannot appear in the official statistics.

Recording is the next stage and whilst