My hypothesis is 'peoples fears of crime is not justified' I plan to find out if people are more afraid of crime than they should be and whether they are correctly informed about the rates of crime. I will also try

> As I go along I will correct any mistakes made. I will also question anything that strongly disagrees with my findings or says they are wrong.

> Once I have completed all forms of my research I will be able to draw up my conclusions and see if all my research adds up. I will be able to see if my title is true or false. Only once my statement is proved right or wrong my project will be complete.

Questionnaire Tally of results

Number of responses: 73

: What gender are you? MALE 26 FEMALE 47

2: How old are you? 0-10 11-16 17 17-25 2

26-35 9 36+ 45

3: what gender do you think commits most crime? MALES 69 FEMALES 4

4: In your opinion what age group commits most crime? 0-10 0 11-16 11

17-25 32 26-35 17 36+ 13

5: Of the following who is mostly to single parent nuclear 14

Commit a crime? Someone from a ... family 25

Adopted 17 foster 21

6: Which of these do you think is Fraud 19 Rape 17

Going down? The amount of ...

Vandalism 22 Drugs 15

7: What crime are you most afraid of? Many different: mainly violent crimes and

Burglary

8: Would your fear of crime prevent yes: 29 No: 44

you from doing anything? Please specify

what you wouldn't do. Mainly not go out at night.

9: What would you like to help to Many different: more security e.g. patrolling

protect you from crime? officers and more security cameras

0: What brings crime statistics to News 42 Papers 26 your notice?

Word of mouth 5

Reasons for questions

Question 1: Simply to find out the sex of the questioned person. It makes sure I get a fair range of results. Meaning I get an even spread of peoples point of view. It may help me to see if people of different sexes think different thinks or are told different things.

Question 2: Simply to find out the age of the questioned person. It again makes sure I get a fair and even spread of results. It may help me to see if people of different ages think or are told.

Question 3: From this question I want to find out if one sex is portrayed to people as more likely to commit crime. I think that it will show a majority of people will think males commit more crime than females. I want to see whether one gender is stereotyped.

Question 4: This question will allow me to see if a certain age group is portrayed as committing most crime. Also it will be interesting to see if the age of the person answering the question affects the age they think is most likely to commit crime. I want to see if people's opinions are right.

Question 5: I think most people wont know the answer but I think they will choose some one who is fostered/adopted or someone from a single family because the will feel these people are more likely to be 'emotionally unstable'. this may help me to see whether a particular family is stereotyped.

Question 6: I think people will think all of these crimes are going up so most people will probably guess. This is the purpose of this question, to see how well the general public are informed.

Question 7: from this question I want to find out if people's fears are justified. This would also tie in with their age to see if the elderly are more afraid of crime than the younger generation.

Question 8: I want to see if people's fear of crime is so great that it affects what they want to do. If it is it will give us a very clear picture that something needs to be done to make people feel safer. It is wrong for people to feel imprisoned because of other people's actions.

Question 9: This question will show us what to do to make people feel safer. It will give people more freedom to do things that they want that they wouldn't previously have done. It will help to show what needs to be done to create a safer environment.

Question 10: This will see how people are informed and how accurately. it may show why they answered certain questions in a certain way. It may also show why they have certain fears.

Interviews

Interview 1 person A

'Have you ever committed a crime?'

'yes'

'What crime did you commit?'

'Shoplifting'

'Why did you do it?'

'I just felt like it. It was a CD I wanted and I didn't have enough money with me so I decided to take it.'

'Do you feel guilty about taking it?'

'Not really. CD shops make loads of money so it's not as if they'll notice it's gone.'

'What would you have done if you were caught?'

'I dunno. My mum would probably kill me.'

'What about your dad?'

'He doesn't live with us and I don't see him very often but if he found out he would go mad.'

This person comes from a single parent family. They know their mother would not approve but they still shoplift. This person is a girl and most of shoplifters are girls so she is a typical case. Her father not living with her may have had an effect on why she did it. I think this crime was very unjustified because she only stole because she didn't have enough money with her. She doesn't feel at all guilty about doing it so she will probably keep on doing it.

This is the sort of thing we need to target from an early age. We need to show children the implications of stealing and let them see the effects it has on every one involved.

Interview 6 Person F

'Have you ever committed a crime?'

yeah I've nicked some stuff from shops.

'like what'

'just things like pens and sweets and other little stuff like that'

'Why did you steal them?'

'it was a dare first of all but then I just kept on doing it. My friends are sorry they dared me to. They didn't expect me to keep on doing it.'

'do you feel guilty about doing it?'

'not really. I know I should but I get a buzz out of doing it. I suppose that's why I don't feel guilty.'

'what would your parents say if you get caught?'

'I dunno not much. They know my sister did it because she got caught loads of times.'

This person a boy this time lives in a nuclear family. He also doesn't feel guilty about stealing and so needs to be shown how to stop. He thinks he is stealing things not important to people and things that people wont notice so he doesn't think any thing is wrong. It seems as if he is almost addicted to the rush of adrenaline he gets from stealing so this is something we have to consider when trying to understand why people steal.

Also he is not worried about getting caught because when his sister was caught she wasn't punished very hard so he no worries about getting caught so he has nothing to stop doing it for.

Interpretation of research

My hypothesis is 'people's fears of crime is not justified'. my research is to try to prove of disprove my hypothesis. I will try to make sure that all my research is relevant to this hypothesis. My first piece of research I am going to analyse is my newspaper cuttings. The first newspaper I found was from the summer of 2003 and in the independent. The headline is 'Judges bow to pressure for tougher prison sentences.' This article is about criminals being sentenced to longer jail terms than ever before. The sentence lengths have increased by a big amount of even in the last year. if people read this newspaper they should feel reassured that anyone breaking the law and being caught will be punished and sentenced for a longer time. the reason these new and harsher punishments have been enforced is because people are becoming afraid of crime and criminal are not worried about the consequences. if there is a harsher punishment people are less likely to attempt to break a law.

As well as the sentences increasing there is also a higher chance of them being convicted. Now there is a 91 percent chance of being convicted and being convicted for burglary and 98 percent chance for rape. This source is trying to give people faith in the legal system and trying to give them reassurance that work is being done and to try to make them feel safer. I think it has worked because its technique of telling you the basic facts lets you come to your own conclusions and I am of the opinion these views will almost always be good.

It doesn't really help me know whether my hypothesis is true because it doesn't really ask people their opinion of crime. I feel it must imply that people are scared to an extent because if no one was afraid the article would be a waste of time.

I was going to use an interview to see how many people of my age group had committed crimes and how serious the crimes are. I decided not to use this form of research because of the fact that if someone told me they had committed a crime I would morally be expected to tell the police so I have decided not to do this.

The next piece of research I will evaluate is my questionnaire results. This is the most important piece of research I have carried out because my hypothesis is 'peoples fears of crime is not justified' this means I have to ask peoples opinions. This is the only research I ended up using where I asked people directly and so the results of this will be the main thing to see if my hypothesis is true of false.

Question 1: this question did not help to find out people's fears it was only to know what percentage of the people who replied one male and female. The majority of people were female and this is what I expect. I expected this because women are most likely stereotypically to reply to these sorts of causes.

Question 2 with was designed will to find out what different age groups answered my questionnaire. The majority were 36 plus. I expected this because the majority of younger people would not usually bother with answering any thing like this I only got a few people younger than this age to answer a questionnaire so I had to go and ask my friends and family their opinion so that I got a good range of results. This question also didn't really have anything to do with me finding out the results of my hypothesis. it was simply to find out whether I had a good range of results. I would have preferred to have a few more people in the 17- 25 age group because I could only find two people to answer my question in this age group. If I had more people in this age the result might have been different. People of this age are more confident and probably wouldn't have been scared of the crime rates.

Question 3 I wanted to find out what sex people thought committed the most crime. I thought people would guess that men committed the most crime. they were right in a majority. four people said that they thought women committed the most crime. I should have put it a question with asking why they thought this sex was the most and I could have understood why they thought this. This shows a weakness in my questionnaire that if I was to write it again I would modify.

Question 4 this question was meant to see which age group people think commit the most crime. I thought people would not be sure and there would be a fairly even amount in each section, however there was no people who thought that under tens committed the most crime. all the others were fairly close together with 17-25 in the lead. this is what I expected because many elderly people are stereotypically afraid of youths of roughly this age. we are subconsciously told by the media so I should have asked what race they feel commits most crime.

Question 5: this is to see whether people have a stereotyped family type that commits crime. I thought people would think that people from a 'disrupted' family background would commit crimes the most. This is because they are portrayed as mentally unstable and so more likely to be disrupted of be attention seeking. The results I got showed this to be true with most people saying that people from a single parent family commits the most crime. I was a little surprised at this because I thought most people would say that foster children are most likely to commit crime because they are often moved around and are so unsettled.

Question 6: this question was to see whether people knew which was going down. I thought that people would think all of them were going up and thought that they would guess one of them. I was right and all of them were very close together showing me that no one was sure.

Question 7: I wanted in this question to find out whether people were afraid of the crimes that are most common and how afraid they should be. Most women were afraid of rape or burglary. Men are afraid of murder and violent attacks. These are the crimes you would expect people to be afraid of. From my research on the internet I found that rape was increasing but most of the other things people were afraid are going down. Most crime is non violent which people should be informed about.

Question 8: I wanted to find out how far peoples fear of crime would stop them from doing things and to affect their life. I was relieved to see that most people were not stopped from doing things because of their fears. There was however 29 out of 73 people who were prevented from doing things because of these fears. Mainly going out after dark because of the fear of being attacked.

Question 9: I wanted to see what people would need to make them feel safer in their environment. The main thing that most people wanted was extra security. Some said more CCTV cameras, and other said more police patrolling the streets. This is being introduced in some areas so hopefully people will be reassured.

Question 10: I wanted to find out how people learned out about crime. The results show that most people find out from the news. This means this would be the best place to show recent crime figures so that everyone is equally informed and may feel safer and reassure that something is being done to help the state of the country.

Overall this was probably the most useful piece of research I used. Most of the questions I asked people got the questions right but there are a few things that need to be changed in society in order for people to feel safe and secure.

Internet research this was used to show me the general trend of crime in England. it has shown that many crime rates have fallen with in the past few years. many people do not go on to the internet and so would not know these figures. I feel that these statistic need to be shown somewhere else so that everyone is able to see it.

Analysis of data. 'peoples fears of crime is not justified'

From my research and the internet I found out the crime overall is going down. People are not aware of this and therefore were scared of crime. It is often portrayed in the newspapers that crime is on the increase rapidly. From my research I found out that only a few crimes are in fact are increasing and people need to be made aware of this. some of the only crime that has increased in the past few years are criminal damage, robbery, and rape. Rape is increasing by a lot however from my newspaper article I have found that the chances of being caught if you have committed a rape is very high and the prison sentence has increased. There should be more done however to prevent it in the first place but this is not part of my study. from my questionnaire I found out that many people do not know the true extent of Britain's crime rate. The majority were scared of violent attacks which are luckily reducing and many crimes are not in fact violent. People read newspapers and watch the news and hear about terrible murders committed in this country. These images build up to a fear and something will need to be done to help this fear. I could not find any statistics relating to people's fears on the internet or in any books. Therefore I am not able to compare my findings to that of somebody else. I do however feel that my findings are right because these are what I expected to hear when I first started my project.Because of my findings I feel that the public are not well enough informed to make a decision. the only place that I could find information on crime figures was on the internet sites and in a few books. The books however were out of date and would not be of much use to someone reading them. not everybody has the internet and so have no good way of finding out statistics. people who do have the internet would probably not want to spend a long time looking at sites to find the information they need. there needs to be a place that everybody knows of that contains up-to-date information about crime figures in the UK. Therefore I conclude that my hypothesis was right and people's fear of crime is not. The only reason for this is that people do not have the knowledge and if they did my hypothesis might be proved wrong. In order to do this people need to have the choice to decide for themselves by looking at the figures themselves.

Evaluation

I feel that the best methods and of research that I used was my questionnaire and the internet. Using these together formed a good basis for me to prove my hypothesis right. a questionnaire was necessary to have because I needed the opinions of the public. I also needed information to see whether their thought had a good basis in fact. I would have liked used an interview also because this would have also given me the point of view of other members of the public and unlike questionnaire I could change the question to get the answers and information that i needed. however if people admitted to me that they committed a crime it would be expected of me that i reported it. the methods that I did use however form a good basis for me to analyse my hypothesis. I did follow my action plan fairly well with the exception of cutting out the interviews. I regularly read up the newspaper to find information about crime. I also went to the library to see whether there was any information there. the internet was probably the easiest form of research that I used. It could all be done easily in a short space of time. The only place that I feel there are weaknesses in my project is in my questionnaire some of the questions I should have asked people to the elaborate on so that I got a better understanding of how they felt. if I was to do the project again that this is what I would change. My evidence has shown that people are afraid of crime but often in areas of that they don't need to be. My opinion was that they wouldn't have justified reason for being scared of crime and my evidence has shown that to an extent this is true with. I don't think that my project is biased in any way because I simply asked people their opinion and compared it at the facts and shown to me at . I picked this subject because I knew that it be hard for me to be biased about it. from the work we did in class I knew some of these facts about crime figures it before I did this course I wouldn't have known these facts. That's why I feel that people should be informed in the same way that I am and should be able to do which at their own leisure. I feel that the process that i adopted was a good one as it was time efficient because I send out questionnaires first because I knew they would take the longest to be returned. will I also feel that my hypothesis was a good one because of it allowed to find a lot of information on the topic and it allowed to make a good questionnaire. I didn't find the project to difficult and I feel this is because of my hypothesis and the way I carried out my research.