THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS
Introduction
Police official reports and records of key life events are the most common and frequently used sources of official statistics. In most scenarios an increase or decrease in crime in communities, cities and countries is measured by official crime statistics obtained from data on crime that has been reported to the criminal justice system. Crimes that are not reported nor detected by the criminal justice system and law enforcement agencies are referred to as dark figures of crime. Crime official statistics is important in describing crime, finding reasons behind why certain crimes occur and evaluating policies and procedures that have been established to curb crime. It is important that crime statistics are availed to facilitate the gauging of criminal activities that can influence the wellbeing of the community.
Official statistics saves researchers a lot of time since they readily availed at no or at a minimum cost on online libraries and world wide websites. Generally, they are easy to access and navigate and can be accessed remotely from home. Given the scarcity of resources it would be unwise to disregard a cheap and readily available source of data. Official statistics cover the entire population of a geographical location and in most cases, they contain accurate data that is collected through various qualitative methods; therefore, the credibility of the data cannot be doubted (Weatherburn, 2011, P 5). Since this method does not require the analyzation of live subjects the researches presence cannot cause any reactivity or interference that can tamper with the results. Also, official statistics allow historical comparison since the data is collected over time and goes a long way back.
Administrative statistics are favored by positivists since they allow researchers to spot trends, figure out correlation and make generalization. Official statistics also makes conducting research easier since they allow the research to remain detached, therefore, there is little room on no room for interference. Official statistics are collected in the national interest; therefore, they are not biased in any way. They also track the progress of public institutions to include the criminal justice system (Hayes et al., 2014, P 36). Official statistics from police data is considered voluminous which makes investigation into crime more detailed and allows the mapping of crimes by specific such as street names. Official statistics from crime victim survey have a way of measuring reported and non-reported crimes, in comparison to police reports crime victim surveys gives a more accurate picture on the prevalence of crime.
One of the greatest disadvantages of official statistics on crime is that they are prone to misuse by the media, selective reporting of official statistics on crime is one of the ways that these data are misused, selective reporting occurs in two ways. The first way mainly involves selecting a period of time when the rate of crime was low and comparing the period with another when the rate of crime was high (Weatherburn, 2011, P 10). This form of selective reporting of official statistics misleads the public on the prevalence of crime at certain time. The second form of selective reporting involves the selective reporting and use of facts, an instance of selective reporting took place is Sydney where the criminal justice system informed journalists that the number of offenders under the age of ten had reduced from 130% in 2005 to 94% in 2007, despite this information journalists went further and published an article titled “ Kid Crime Rampage”, the article mentioned that the police had recorded a total of 7724 offences committed by children under 10 between 2005 and 2007 but did not mention that the percentage had fallen remarkable in the years that followed (Weatherburn, 2011, P 11). Miss representation of facts occurs when the media completely gets the facts wrong, often administrative statistics presented on crime are prone to being misunderstood by journalists (Weatherburn, 2011, P 11). Administrative statistics are also prone to being abused by politicians and the police, just like journalist’s, politicians and police engage in the selective use of data and issue misleading commentaries, it is not uncommon to hear police downplay an increase in the number of the recorded domestic offences as nothing more than the willingness of victims to report a crime.
The greatest weakness of official statistics collected from police data is that not all the crimes that are reported to the police are recorded. This makes the recorded crime a poor guide to the true prevalence of crime in various geographical locations (Weatherburn, 2011, P 12). Official statistics collected from crime victim surveys lack to provide information on victimless crimes such as illegal drug abuse. This data also fails to provide information about serious crimes that are rarely conducted such as the crime of extortion. In comparison to police reports they compare poorly in providing detailed data on the circumstances surrounding a particular crime.
The dark figures of crime are the undiscovered crimes that are not reported to the police or the criminal justice system, the fact that these crimes are underreported means that they are not included in official statistics. To uncover these crimes methods to include, self-reporting surveys, victimization surveys, enforcement pyramid and geospatial analysis are utilized (Coleman et al., 1999). The method of self-reporting surveys started being used in the 1940s to uncover dark figures of crime. This method involves questioning various individuals on their engagement in crime and other law-breaking acts, the answers to these questions are collected through questionnaire and interviews. These surveys are designed in a way that they create a safe and free environment to ensure that the results obtained from the survey are accurate. History has provided evidence on the effectiveness of self-surveys when used to uncover the dark figured of crime. Murphy was responsible for carrying a study for five years on American adolescent males to illustrate the effectiveness of self-survey. Among the 6416 reports obtained from the study half of these reports ended up being include in official statistics (Coleman et al., 1999).
Portfield carried out a similar research and proved the effectiveness of this method; his survey uncovered the hidden crimes of a pastor as well as shed light on an unreported murder. In the late 1980s James Short and Ivan Nye formulated reliability checks, which maximized the ability of self-reported surveys to uncover the dark figures of crime. The improvement of these two included the introduction of social desirability variables. Despite self-surveys proving to be useful in uncovering crimes it has methodological issues hindering its efficiency (Coleman et al., 1999). Trivial crimes are not likely to produce a credible response, this leads to the production of skewed results that make official figure inaccurate.
Victimization surveys are another method that can be used to uncover hidden crimes, this method works by sampling a certain population on the crimes that are commented against them (Coleman et al., 1999). The subjects of these surveys are victims of crimes, this method is used to detect crimes that are not recorded in official statistics. When victimization surveys are carried out subsequently at an interval, they expose unreported crimes (Coleman et al., 1999). Victimization surveys are carried out at the local, national and international level. On the local level these surveys are small and are geographically focused on a certain small vulnerable group or society. The British Crime Survey is an example of a national survey, these kinds of surveys examine a larger geographical area with a focus on gaining the overall results on the extent of crimes. Victimization surveys produce remarkable results when used to uncover the dark figures of crime. The British Crime Survey is an example of a victimization survey, this survey uncovered the disparity that was found between reported and unreported crimes. In the period between 1991 to 1993, administrative statistics record a 7% increase in crime, the results from the victimization survey conducted by the British Crime Survey juxtaposed these results by stating that the rate of crime had increased by 18% during this period (Coleman et al., 1999). The BCS has provided cocreate proof that victimization surveys are an effective method that can be utilized to uncover the dark figures of crime. One of the limitations of this method is that it only includes crimes with identifiable victims’ and cannot be used to solve hidden crimes on issues such as environmental degradation.
Geospatial analysis has been used to uncover dark figures of crime in the last two decades. This method involves uncovering crimes via the use of location and comparison of incidences by their spatial distribution (Yang, B., 2019, P,4889). Generally, this method seeks to identify areas where unreported crimes are concentrated, identification of such hotspots is done by plotting incidences of crime on a map. This method of uncovering dark figures of crime originated from New York City following the development of CompStat. The data obtained from summaries developed by the NYPD on crime is entered into the city’s database. This method has also proved to be successful in uncovering the dark figures of crime since once accurate data is collected officers are able to identify “crime hotspots”. The most concerning shortcoming of this method is that it discourages officers from filling official crime reports in order to portray a false reduction in crime rate in communities.
The enforcement pyramid focusses of uncovering the dark figures of crime committed by white collar offenders to include, Directors, Managers and individuals in power. Criminologists firmly believe that crimes committed by wealthy individuals are overlooked in comparison to general criminals. The enforcement pyramid was designed by John Braithwaite to function as a method of uncovering the unreported and undocumented crimes involving high ranking individuals. This method uses persuasion and punishment to uncover these crimes (Dalton et al., 2017). The fact that white-collar criminals utilize embedded law to escape persecution has proved this method ineffective in uncovering the dark figures of crime.
Inconclusion, official statistic provided a reliable source of data that can be used to measure the level of crime. These statistics have advantages to include; they are cheap and their retrieval is not time consuming. This data is credible since it has been recorded in the interest of the public. Disadvantages include the fact that they are prone and subject to misuse by journalists. Dark figures of crimes are the crimes that are unreported, therefore, they are not recorded in official statistics. These dark figures of crime can be uncovered through methods such as, self-reporting surveys, victimization surveys, enforcement pyramid and geospatial analysis. Despite the success of these methods of crime they all have been unable to uncover all the dark figures of crime due to certain limitations occurring in each method.
Bibliography
Coleman, C., & Moynihan, J. (1999). Understanding crime data: haunted by the dark figure. Buckingham, Open University Press.
Dalton, D., De Lint, W., & Palmer, D. (2017). Crime and justice: a guide to criminology.
Hayes, E., & Prenzler, T. (2014). Introduction to Crime and Criminology. Pearson Australia Pty Ltd. https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=5133263.
Weatherburn, D., 2011. Uses and abuses of crime statistics. BOCSAR NSW Crime and Justice Bulletins, p.16.
Yang, B., 2019. GIS Crime Mapping to Support Evidence-Based Solutions Provided by Community-Based Organizations. Sustainability, 11(18), p.4889.
