Yet even though the purpose of OCS is the main benefit of this type of crime measurement, there are still quite a few advantages that can be gained from the use of official statistics. Collecting official statistics on crime and deviance is cheap and they are readily available; due to the Home Office publishing they annually and they can be downloaded by anyone with internet access. An additional pro of using official statistics is that they are high in reliability and validity. As they have the ability to go back and check the findings of the data means that there is a small chance of mistake (reliability) and these statistics cover a large part of the population and are collected by the state. This means that they are valid (which for sociologist means it accurately reflects the reality of what being studied).
However several arguments have been presented to argue that official statistics are not a valid (measurement of crime. Firstly there is the definition of crime is relative this can lead to crimes not being recognised by victims and not being reported. Some crimes are not thought to be crimes and depend on the victims’ definition of crime. An example of a situation this would come into play is would be when a fair fight turns into assault; this is entirely dependent on the definitions of the people involved in the situation. Also considering the Dark Figure of crime (this is term employed by and to describe the amount of unreported or undiscovered crime) which is a very important factor in the evaluating of OCS. As the dark figure shows the incompetence of the official statistics process; it causes people to believe that the official picture that is created by these statistics is not complete and therefore inaccurate.
Another drawback of the official statistics is the recording of crime – while the police have a statutory obligation to record all crime reported to them. There is always some prudence over whether the crime is important enough to warrant their attention (this can vary according to the different police forces). For a crime to be recorded certain events have to done before they are recorded by the police: somebody must be aware that a crime has taken place, the crime must be reported and the police or other agencies of the legal system have to accept a law has been broken and decide to record it. Another reason some crimes might not get recorded is that not all crimes have an obvious victim, this means that they are less likely to be reported; for example white collars crime (e.g. embezzlement).
The recording of crime is heavily linked to the reporting of crime as a negative aspect of The Official Statistics – this is because not all crime committed are reported to the police, due to the fact the majority of the public believe that the police will not think their crime is a priority therefore doesn’t matter. However it is believe this is made ineffective by the growth of the insurance industry and companies needing a crime number before they handle people cases. Never the less this isn’t the only reason that a significant numbers of crime remain unreported to the police. In most case this issue is mainly caused by the victim; either they may not know a crime has been committed or they could believe that it’s not worth reporting. Some victims might seek to resolve the issue themselves or maybe too frightened to report it; embarrassment could also be a factor as well. Other motivations for not reporting crimes could be the proximity f police station, officer on duty or availability of phones (might not be as important due to the increasing number of people with mobiles).
In conclusion, it can be summarised that Official Statistics are useful in measuring crime and deviance because they are already available. Their use saves time, effort and money. They give a wide- ranging picture of social observable fact in terms of crime and deviance. Also they have excellent comparative value in that they allow the examination of trend over time. However it is very simple to be critical of statistics because of the many defects; a solution would be to choose an alternative measure of crime and deviance. An example would be Self-reported Studies, are studies that attempt discover the characteristics of the criminals. They are interviews or questionnaire where individuals admit what types and numbers of crimes they have committed. Never the less these they are flawed; individuals might want to conceal their crimes. However, it can still be argued that self-report studies are more likely to identify more criminals, as it eliminates the problems; with the reporting and recording of crime and the dark figure.
