Measurability of crime - Essay Example

? Crime Task: Measurability of crime is viewable in two perspectives. To begin with, crime measurement would pertain to what ideologically fits as crime. On the other hand, it relates to quantitative reports such as statistics that relate to crime. There have been continual records of criminal court proceedings in several countries. This regards the idea of existence of criminal courts that have concerned with litigation of criminal cases. In the 18th century, Bentham promoted the use of national courts as a reliable data base for manifesting the moral state of a nation. In a long period of criminal activities, these formed the principal sources of social statistics that relate to crime. The court proceedings formed an arbitrary guide to the situation of crime and criminality in different nations. This is because limited crime cases were brought to court. To begin with, it is vital to evaluate the limitations of measurement as pertains to gauging the severity of crimes. Criminology shares a continuing interest in assessing the severity of crimes. Normative rankings developed parallel interests that established severity measures as relates to the cost towards society. The major challenge of this methodology pertains to its abstractness that detaches the same from society (Bulmer, Gibbs & Hyman 2010, p. 29). The system attains information from a wide range of policies and theories. This is closely related to the constraint on limited data that prop on loosely related methods to price estimation. Crime places a substantial economic burden on a society. By comprehending the magnitude of harms that the victims of crime experience, the principal entities can allocate scarce resources for control of crime. This severity measurement model assumes harm as costs of crime control, direct victims’ losses and costs from incapacitated offenders. A neoclassical viewpoint suggests that a society should make crime control investment to the point whereby the marginal crime social costs equal the crime control expenditures. This necessitates that the system adopts a mode for calculating optimal expenditure in prevention investment whereby a value is infused on the victims’ cost of crime (MacDonald 2010, p. 40. This is the product of quantity of victims’ harm and the price. However, external costs to victims provide a difficulty of quantification. The administrative data and self-report surveys can offer statistics to amount of crimes without offering the price of crimes. The summary of this challenge of assessing harm relates to the idea that there is no single source data source that supports reliable measurement of crime. The indirect and direct losses of crime and the given crime that ignited those losses are insufficiently provided data. Most social estimates of crime are aggregate crime statistics and civil jury award data. Given the nature of a diverse society, most individuals opt to settle disputes and cases of crime outside courts. This exists in the view that courts would grant stringent punishment to most offenders. However, this scenario could be challenged by heralding criminal acts as offense against a particular state. In this perspective, police officers could attend to criminal cases that they did not attain litigious reports about the same. For a considerable part of history, police statistics have presented perceptibly reliable statistics that relate to crime. However, experts are aware that there are several flaws and hitches that deter reliable collection and measuring of crime data. There have been reports of pitfalls to crime statistics and validation of crime rates. To begin with, there is a core problem of individuals that do not report witnessed crimes. This scenario arises out of several factors. To begin with, the cost of crime reporting is a steep venture that several individuals would easily avoid. The society becomes a self oriented community whereby individuals concern with their own activities at the expense of other’s suffering. For instance, an individual would witness a robbery incident while going to work. In this instance, the opportunity cost of reporting the incident is huge and this makes a particular individual ignore the whole process of presenting a valid case and becoming a witness for the court proceedings. Besides, the time of reporting a criminal act determines whether police officers will accept a case. This is because individuals posses a blur account of vents by the time of reporting. This forms the pile of crime cases that do not enter the police records because they do not possess validity. In certain, instances, the crime cases are dismissed on different subjective grounds. The upshot in crime data pertains to the idea that police record of crime is a presents a partial picture of the real situation. Majority of crimes never reach the national statistics police desk because they are deemed less serious. For instance, the instance of criminal damage may not attain the attention of police statistics because of notable reasons (Burgess 2012, p. 46). A relevant example concerns the case of an individual that rubs a coin against the side of a car. In spite of the considerable cost of damage, the victim may ignore reporting such an act since the insurance policy might constrain one from making a claim. Even in cases of reporting, the police officers might try to validate whether the crime was accidental or intentional. There are notable factors that act to discourage victims from delivering reports to police units. To begin with, a given community may herald certain criminal acts as trivial. Besides, the victim may experience notions of embarrassment in reporting certain crimes such as rape. In certain instances, victims do not attain the awareness that they are victims. Inadequate trust, by the public, to the police force worsens this scenario. In addition, the police face pressures to report crime based on given rewards. There are pressure communities such as the government that possess sporadic expectations as concerns the case of crimes. This will create an incentive towards deflating or inflating the presentation of crime data as based on different rewards and situations (Felson & Roba, p. 29). During certain periods, police units with high crime counts faced the reward of more resources. In other periods, police units that record high crime count, face criticism as concerns given performance targets. In this perspective, the version of crime reported could fluctuate over time and presentable false perspective of the real scenarios. This suggests that the ratio of criminal acts and police records are not stable over regions and time. In the past, governments ignored this aspect in assessing the safety of their populations. In addition, there is the justice gap in crime measurement. This is a source of attrition since a disparity exists of the offenders’ number that passes through court proceedings and the same that actually commit crimes. This aspect continues to discourage victims from reporting their cases. An effective strategy of encountering this problem has been the conduct of victimization surveys. In contrast to the whole enumeration of crime, the survey strategy adopts a sample approach to covering of crime statistics. A victimization survey entails adoption of a representative population and offer of queries as pertains to whether they have encountered certain crimes in a given period. In case one is a victim, survey method involves further probing for detailed information on a given incident. This method attains this effectiveness because it queries individuals on personal experiences rather than leaning on the attention of police. Consistent queries provide a trend in crime rate since it notices slight changes. To begin with, victimization survey identifies experiences of victimization by employing a screener questionnaire. A screener questionnaire comprises a range of questions that target at uncovering incidents of crime. The interviewers structure the questions in an informal manner for unconstrained comprehension by respondents. This is a strategy of covering several incidents. The victim form has a capacity of covering up to six incidents. This form gathers incidental detailed information by employing a series of linked questions that address particulars such as area of occurrence, description of victims and utility of force during the incident. Thereafter, the data analysts transform recorded answers into legal offense categories in order that they match actual crime figures (Burgess 2012, p. 46). The effective coding system will entail assignment of one code to every victim form. This follows a system of hierarchy whereby crimes attain ranks according to their severity such the severe crimes attain the first priority. This is a both a manual and automated system where specialists assess whether every crime attain the appropriate coding. The automated system examines the coded answers for estimation of figures to the whole population. Victimization possesses additional benefits as it provides extra information as pertains to interrelated aspects of crime. This involves socio-demographic aspects attitudes to crime and fear of the same. The illumination of public attitudes towards crime becomes a foundation for theories of controlling crime. The characteristics of offenders and nature of crime provides an interrelationship that uncovers the sociological factors towards crime. It is discernible that there are two perspectives towards measurement of crime. To begin with, the theoretical foundation towards assessing severity of crimes follows an abstract method that faces the constraint of attaining relevant data. The evaluation of costs employs indirect methods and source of data that do not build reliable data. In addition, police statistics do not possess accurate depiction of the actual crime situation because of partial data collection. This problem can be countered by the method victimization survey method since it queries respondents of their actual experiences. Bibliography Bulmer, M, Gibbs, J, Hyman, L 2010, Social measurement through social surveys: an applied approach, Ashgate Publishing, New York. Burgess, A 2012, Victimology: theories and applications, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, Burlington. Felson, M, Boba, R 2009, Crime and Everyday Life, SAGE, Thousand Oaks. MacDonald, J 2010, Measuring crime and criminality: advances in crimological theory, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick. Read More