Official statistics are a source of secondary quantitative data. This means that it provides us with information which already exists. The statistics that it provides with are based on crimes that are being committed and who commits these crimes in the society. These are drawn from police-recorded statistics and other official statistics. The statistics are then published every 6 months by the Home Office. However, these statistics have received great deal of criticism and therefore, there are other alternatives such as British Crime Survey and the self-report studies where people are asked if they have committed any crime.
One advantage of using official statistics is the fact that it is very useful for sociologist when carrying out their …show more content…
The use of victimisation survey or the victim survey allows to gather information simply by using a sample of population, either locally (such as the most famous survey – the Islington crime surveys) or nationally and asking these population about which the offences that have been committed against them over a certain period of time. The best known victimisation study is the British Crime Survey (BCS). It is carried out annually and consists of 48,000 interviews conducted at home. The British Crime Survey is successful at revealing the different types of crime that different types of people are at risk of or likely to carry out i.e. we can find out about the ethnicity and gender of victims of that certain crime. This then allows the government to have an insight into the crimes and it helps them to use it to prevent certain crimes that occur quite often which may not have been …show more content…
They believe that sociology is not science as science deals with causes and effect but instead sociology is about understanding the human meaning. Interpretivists argue that it is important to understand social action by delving into the reasons and meanings which causes people to behave in a certain way. This is because different culture or society has a different interpretation of what crime and deviance is. For example, it is legal to buy marijuana in Amsterdam; however it is socially unacceptable and illegal to buy it in UK. They also argue that the labelling view rejects the accuracy of crime statistics as the police focus more on the stereotypes such as young black males who are stereotyped to be the typical
One advantage of using official statistics is the fact that it is very useful for sociologist when carrying out their …show more content…
The use of victimisation survey or the victim survey allows to gather information simply by using a sample of population, either locally (such as the most famous survey – the Islington crime surveys) or nationally and asking these population about which the offences that have been committed against them over a certain period of time. The best known victimisation study is the British Crime Survey (BCS). It is carried out annually and consists of 48,000 interviews conducted at home. The British Crime Survey is successful at revealing the different types of crime that different types of people are at risk of or likely to carry out i.e. we can find out about the ethnicity and gender of victims of that certain crime. This then allows the government to have an insight into the crimes and it helps them to use it to prevent certain crimes that occur quite often which may not have been …show more content…
They believe that sociology is not science as science deals with causes and effect but instead sociology is about understanding the human meaning. Interpretivists argue that it is important to understand social action by delving into the reasons and meanings which causes people to behave in a certain way. This is because different culture or society has a different interpretation of what crime and deviance is. For example, it is legal to buy marijuana in Amsterdam; however it is socially unacceptable and illegal to buy it in UK. They also argue that the labelling view rejects the accuracy of crime statistics as the police focus more on the stereotypes such as young black males who are stereotyped to be the typical