Outline and assess the importance of victim surveys for the sociological understanding of crime and deviance

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Outline and assess the importance of victim surveys

for the sociological understanding of crime and deviance

Understanding of crime and deviance is strongly influenced by the ideological perspective used to quantify it. From a Marxist perspective crime is the natural outgrowth of capitalist society. The capitalist system emphasises the maximisation of profits and the accumulation of wealth, however the biases of the same system mean that some individuals are not able to achieve these ends without turning to a life of crime. Arguably victim surveys assess and document crime without subjecting the biases of official statistics which favour the bourgeoisie and marginalise the working classes. Similarly, from a feminist perspective official statistics present nothing more than a patriarchal social construction and women are consistently under estimated both as victims and perpetrators of crime.

   In 1983 the Home Office research and planning department published the first British crime surveys in an attempt to overcome the limitations of annual crime statistics. This survey, based on the non- official assertions of victims confirmed that official statistics are highly unreliable and invalid. Only 44% of crimes are reported to the police, the initial criteria which must be fulfilled for a crime to be recorded officially. For example, only 26% of people reported crimes of vandalism, often the victim felt that the police would consider the offense too trivial which links to the Marxist claim that capitalist society practices ‘selective law enforcement’. It is estimated that 46% of crimes which are reported are not recorded by the police as crimes in the categories used in British Crime Surveys, many were ‘no crimed’ or deemed as insignificant, as such it appears that official statistics are neither representative or valid in a way that victim surveys are.

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   Since rates of reporting and recording crime varied so much between crimes, official statistics do not reflect the extent of different crimes uncovered by the survey. Therefore, victim surveys offer a useful insight into the comparative trends of crime which is not afforded by official statistics. However, the data provided is not entirely reliable, Jock Young points out several problems with victim surveys, for example, victims may conceal crimes due to a misplaced sense of guilt, particularly with regards to crimes such as rape. This links to the feminist perspective of crime, even in the context of victim surveys ...

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