Why Do We Need Different Methods to Measure Crime

Investigating crime and comparing crime rates had seen many changes throughout history. Crime cannot be explained straightaway, as there is not a specific definition of it, and true figures on crime cannot be obtained from one way or a specific statistics. The government institutions, as well as, academic experts have been trying to find reliable methods for measuring crime, although until 1960’s there were not proper studies about crime data.

There are different methods for gathering information on crime: crime statistics by the home office, police reports, British crime survey, legal reports of the courts, national victimization surveys, local surveys and many others. Although all of them contribute in the process of analysing and defining crime, however, as validity and reliability are not in balance always, all these methods have their criticisms, and the true extent of crime remains unknown to a large degree.

There are different approaches to crime: such as biological, psychological, functionalism, subcultural and more. All these theories try to analyse the problem of crime in their own ways, however it is not a matter of true or false in these analysis, the conflict remains as sufficient or not sufficient.

This short essay tries to look into these different ways of analysing, defining, and collecting information on crime, in order to give a brighter idea about the subject through compare, contrast and criticism.

Crime Statistics

Police statistics include crimes that are recorded by police. Although not all crimes reported to police are already recorded. However, police statistics is still regarded one of the main sources of information on crime. As Jupp says:

Official statistics on crime are means by which the extent of crime can be measured and its spatial, ecological and social distribution examined.

It can be argued that police statistics can tell us the amount of crime in a given time through the number of known offenders, aspects of court proceedings and the size and composition of prison population. Jupp further affirms this point by saying:

Statistics about recorded crimes are used as a means of measuring the extent of crime in society at any given point of time and also as the foundation for examining trends over time.

They may be used as an alarm for the government to pay its attention to the extent of crime in the country and how to fight it, through introducing new laws and increasing police numbers. As Jupp says: