Pros and Cons of the OCS
- Created by: caitlintownend
- Created on: 29-09-15 10:25
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- OFFICAL CRIME STATISTICS
- What is the OCS?
- Official Crime statistics providing information on the total number of crime - 'known to the police'.
- Police records give a official account of the volume and trend of crimes
- Court records and police cautions also give an official picture - who is committing the crimes - of the criminals.
- These figures show the 'crime problem' - interpreted by politicians and then passed on to us through the media.
- Media is often exaggerated, selective - AGENDA SETTING
- These figures show the 'crime problem' - interpreted by politicians and then passed on to us through the media.
- Court records and police cautions also give an official picture - who is committing the crimes - of the criminals.
- Information gathered by the OCS is secondary data,
- PROS OF THE OCS
- EASY TO ACCESS
- Cheap and easily accessed on the internet and can be downloaded - masses of statistics
- QUANT DATA
- Quantitative data can be easily compared and can find pattern and trends in data
- Can go back and check data and is high in reliability
- Quantitative data can be easily compared and can find pattern and trends in data
- UP TO DATE DATA
- The Home Office publishes them - sometimes every 6 months - current
- NATIONAL PICTURE
- Cover a large part of the population - presents a national picture - good for generalisation
- VALID
- Collected from the state - feel they are trustworthy and valid
- NO ETHICAL ISSUES
- OCS deals with numbers, not people - no researcher bias and no danger to sociologist - big advantage when studying crime and deviance
- EASY TO ACCESS
- CONS OF THE OCS
- EXCLUDES SOME CRIMES
- PILKINGTON (1996) - Minor summary offences dealt with in magistrate courts are excluded e.g. fraud
- OCS may not be useful because statistics only tell us about increased reporting of particular crimes - rather than crime increase itself
- People have become more intolerant for property crime - materialistic
- Juvenile crimes may reflect public intolerance - fuelled by journalist 'moral panic ' - looking for good stories - lead to 'folk devils' groups regarded as bad - more likely to report
- Moral Panic could lead to deviancy amplification
- Victimless crimes depend on police detection e.g. drug offences and prostitution - varies from area to area - some police ignore these offences whilst some are strict.
- OCS may not be useful because statistics only tell us about increased reporting of particular crimes - rather than crime increase itself
- PILKINGTON (1996) - Minor summary offences dealt with in magistrate courts are excluded e.g. fraud
- HOME OFFICE COUNTING RULES CAN CHANGE
- Changes in counting rules can increase certain types of crime e.g an assault defined as a summary offence could be re-defined as notifiable offence
- CHANGES IN LAW
- Changes in law can make it harder to interpret statistics e.g. marital **** being made illegal increased **** - reflection of the extension of the law.
- OFFENDERS BELONGING TO INSTITUTES OUTSIDE OF THE LAW
- E.g Armed Forces punish their own offenders - don't need the police involvement.
- COUGHING
- Police encourage to own up to crimes to reduce sentence - 'plea bargaining'
- CUFFING
- Police do not record crime they think they will be unable to solve e.g. stolen phone
- EXCLUDES SOME CRIMES
- DARK FIGURE OF CRIME
- SOME CRIMES AREN'T REPORTED
- Victim is too embarrassed to report crime
- Victim too scared to report - fear of revenge if they do
- Crimes are too trivial too report/ too minor
- SOME CRIMES AREN'T REPORTED BY POLICE
- Crimes to trivial to report by police
- Under reporting of crimes e.g. ****
- Social status of victim
- SOME CRIMES AREN'T REPORTED
- THEORIES
- INTERPRETI- VISTS
- Argue OCS is limited usefulness - social construction - tell more about social groups involved than crime and criminals
- Say the OCS do not account for all crimes committed - only account crimes that are recognised by police and victims - a dark figure exists
- MARXISTS
- Critical of OCS - capitalist state collect and construct crime statistics
- ideological function = whoever has the power to construct statistic has power to control public opinion -criminalise groups such as young, working class and African Caribbeans
- Ignore White collar crime - crimes committed by the powerful aren't punished as harshly as working class crimes
- Critical of OCS - capitalist state collect and construct crime statistics
- FUNCTIONALISTS
- Uncritical view of the data found in statistics - used them to develop theories - Durkheim used them to measure suicide rates (form of deviance) - Merton assumed the statistics were valid and reliable - explain working class crime
- FEMINISM
- Criticise the patriarchal nature of statistics - powerful men can minimise criminality e.g. limit punishment of **** cases. Also gendered sterotypes are protected - those who trangress them are punished
- INTERPRETI- VISTS
- What is the OCS?
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