The psychological view by a man called Sigmund Freud says that the mind is to do with why people commit crime. For example if a person has had an experience of crime so for example seen someone commit murder then they are likely to grow up and commit crime. Some people may agree with this because they may have seen crime when they was younger and then could of committed crime themselves. On the other hand some people may not agree with this because they could say that people who commit crime have got into it by joining gangs.
From the sociological perspective which is what I am interested in a number of explanations have been provided. Sub-Cultures are formed to create their own norms and values so that they can do things their way. Also some people get into the cycle of deprivation which gets them into poverty and then their only choice is for them to go into crime. This later reason is linked to material deprivation and is what I consider to be the most important cause of crime. I hope to prove this to be true by carrying out this research.
Sociologists would be interested in this topic because they would want to find out whom and what causes different crimes in society. By finding out why people commit crimes we could help to tackle those causes and therefore reduce the number of crimes in Newham and other areas, This would mean people can live more comfortably and feel safe, also it would mean that there will be less over crowdedness in our prisons and tax payers money can go to better use in making the quality of life and the British economy better.
Methodology
For my primary research I will carry out a questionnaire on crime and material deprivation and see what the views are in Newham.
The advantages of using a questionnaire are that it would be good to find out views and opinions on crime and gangs and it is a quick and easy way to find out views and opinions. This will be reliable because I will ask people in Newham and this is because they have been living in Newham either all their life or for a few years. People will feel more comfortable talking about their experiences as all information will be in confidence so when people answer my questions they don’t feel uncomfortable.
The disadvantages of questionnaires would be maybe they wouldn’t want to answer. Also people may misunderstand my questions or leave out questions. This could cause my data to be unreliable and will make it more difficult for me to analyze. I will try to overcome these problems by wording my questions very clearly and by also including a mixture of closed and open questions to break up the questionnaire a bit.
My sample frame will be people who live in Newham and I will select them by using random sampling and giving the questionnaire to people in school or to the public.
Ethical issues are what the researcher has to think about and ask questions for him/herself about their research. So for example they would ask themselves “will the questions be offensive towards people?”
Some ethical issues for me would be that getting the questions to ask right. This is because crime and poverty is a sensitive topic and I personally don’t want to go around asking questions like ‘are you in poverty?’ because that would be offensive. Also I want to ask myself what questions I am going to ask and will they work with proving my aims and hypothesis.
Secondary Research- I will use the Internet to find out statistics on crime in Newham and also be using newspaper articles. The reason why I am using these is because they would be useful to find these things out because there are always things in the news and the internet about crime and statistics and to look at peoples views on crime and gangs. I will try and find out what certain sociological words mean by looking in sociological dictionary and text books to help me use sociological words. This would help me back up my hypothesis and will also give me something to compare my primary findings to.
The advantages of using the Internet and newspapers are they are easy access and there is a lot to choose from to find out on things that are roaming around the news and Internet. The disadvantages would be there might be no crime statistics on the Internet and also that there may be no crime updates in the news for research. I will try and resolve this disadvantage by looking at different websites every day to see updates on crimes and gangs.
For my sociology coursework I am carrying out a piece of research on crime in the local community. Please answer all the following questions. All information provided will remain strictly confidential.
What is your gender? Male Female
What is your age? Below 15 16-20
21-25 26-30 30+
What is your ethnicity? White African-Caribbean
Asian Other please specify
1) Do you think that there is much crime in Newham?
Yes No
If yes what type of crimes do you think there are?
Mugging Knife Crime Gun Crime
Other please specify
2) What do you think causes crime?
Peer Pressure Material deprivation
Media influence Boredom Poverty
Other please specify
Which do you think is the most important cause and why?
3) Who do you think commits crime?
Males Females Young Older
Ethnic Minorities
Why?
4) Do you think there has been a change lately in Newham of Crime?
Yes No
Why? Explain you answer
5) Do you think that Material Deprivation exists in Newham?
Yes No
How do you know this?
6) Do you think crime is worse than Newham compared to other parts of the UK?
Yes No
Why?
Thank you for answering this questionnaire your time is much appreciated.
Results
What is your gender?
There were 55% of males who participated in this questionnaire and only 45% of females. I feel that this may make my results biased because it will represent more male views than females. I think proving by my results I have asked more males than females however I gave my questionnaire out randomly.
What is your age group?
There was an even amount of 21-25s, 21-25 and 30+ because I mostly gave out my questionnaires to young teenagers however this wasn’t deliberate because I used random sampling for my questionnaire.
What is your ethnicity?
There were different ethnicities who answered but it was a fairly even amount of ethnicities who answered it. However I feel that this had no effect on how reliable this is. However it was mostly white British because Newham is mostly made up of white British people.
Everyone thought that there is much crime in Newham which does show that I have proved half of my hypothesis. Everyone had the same answer because most people know that this is a tough area and crime happens everywhere. The media also influences crime and actually make it worse than it actually is.
Most people thought that knife crime was the most committed in Newham however people ticked more than one box. This means that there is loads of knife crime in Newham today. However other crimes included racism, vandalism lack of education etc. This does a surprise me a little bit because I expected it to be mugging but this may all be down to dark figures.
Many people thought that poverty was the common cause of crime in Newham but again people who answered ticked more than one box. This doesn’t prove the other half of my hypothesis because according to these results material deprivation is not the common cause of crime in Newham. However this does prove my aims because there are other key factors. The aim I have proved is that I aimed to find out if a high proportion of crime in new is due to material deprivation or other factors.
Most people thought that it is young males who commit the crimes around Newham and again people ticked more than 1 box. Also this proves one of my aims because there are different views and causes on crime. Most people said young people because it is mostly young people in the newspapers committing crime and they have been called ‘yobs’ etc.
Many people think that there has been a change in crime lately in Newham and also this shows that people are also seeing a difference in Newham and crime. These changes may of included more policing on the streets.
People have a view that material deprivation doesn’t exist in Newham anymore. However only a few people believe that material deprivation does still exist in Newham.
Many people thought that there are worse places in the UK than Newham but only by 1%. However some people left this question blank or wrote don’t know.
I think overall the questions were closed unless it said ‘other please specify’
Analysis
What I have fount from my findings is that most people think there is a high proportion of crime in Newham by the showing of my results. This is because most people would know that this is a tough area and crime does happen round here.
I found out that there is no pattern in my results as they were all mixed with the ethnicity, age groups and also peoples different views on how crime is committed and what crimes go on around Newham.
Also I think that the questions were good for the topic and I overcame my ethical issues by asking the right questions and people agreed to answer them.
Evaluation
My hypothesis was ‘There is a high amount of crime in Newham due to Material Deprivation’ To what extent do you agree.
I believe that I have met some of my aims and the first one which was to find out if there was a high proportion of crime in Newham and I achieved this in my questionnaire by my results showing that many people think that there is a high proportion of crime in Newham. The things that went well for this aim was that I got peoples own opinion of if there is existing crime in Newham and as my results show many people do think that there is a lot of crime in Newham at the moment.
The second aim was to find out if high crime rates are due to material deprivation or other factors such as peer pressure etc. I believe that I have met this aim because there are many different reasons to why crime exists in Newham and this also proven by my results. Other factors of crime in Newham included peer pressure, media influence, poverty and boredom. However people did state many other factors which included racism and vandalism to the causes of crime in Newham.
The third aim was to use primary research such as questionnaires. I have met this aim because I was able to carry the questionnaire out successfully and get the results I needed to create the graphs for my results page. I had a mix of different graphs to a bar graph a pie chart and also 3d graphs. I think that my results show a mixture of people’s views towards the different questions I asked them but one question showed a 100% answer.
My fourth aim was to use secondary research to find out statistics and things to do with crime in Newham. I feel that I have met this aim because I have included statistics in my introduction to show that what the crime rates are in Newham and how they compare to the rest of the UK and the statistics show that there is rates that show that Newham has a higher rate of that particular crime, however this was in 2006/2007.
The things that went well during my coursework was that I was able to get most things done so for example I was able to carry out the questionnaire. My method was good because it worked well. It worked well as I was able to carry out the questionnaire well and the questions were good as they were the right ones for the topic. I wouldn’t change no questions because the questions were right in my view because it had to do with the topic.
However my hypothesis was not fully proved because there is not a high proportion of crime in Newham due material deprivation because there are other factors compared to what people think on crime in Newham. These factors included boredom, media influence and peer pressure. All the people had different views on what crime was committed and why its committed in Newham.
I think I could have improved my method by asking more questions on what people think of more questions to find out peoples views on material deprivation but however this would have led to not prove one of my aims to find out other factors.
I think overall I have managed to prove 4 ½ out of 5 of my aims because there is a high proportion of crime in Newham but this is not caused from material deprivation.
However as a whole I think that I have proved everything I can because there is a high proportion of crime in Newham so I feel as I have proved everything I can from this project.
Overall I have learned what people think about Newham and the crime that happens in Newham. Many people had different views on what goes on Newham and the crime that surround it. Also the time limit I had was good because I was ahead and I was on the next part of the project but sometimes behind but came back on track again.
I would have changed the way I think during this project because I think that this project could have more thought into it and could of pulled more parts off more better because I could have had more though planning what I was going to do.
Bibliography
