HND Social Science

Critiques of Official Criminal Statistics

Interpretivist sociologists argue that the OCS are the result of selective policing, criminal statistics originate in interaction between police officers and suspects. However, social groups may receive differential treatment from the police. A police officer has the power to choose to ignore an incident, to give a warning, or to arrest. The police response may depend upon the social characteristics of the suspect.

Interpretivists argue that the high proportion of working class offenders in the OCS is the result of police using indicators such as dress, speech and deference when deciding to stop people or make an arrest. Young working class people are consequently stereotyped negatively by the police and are stopped more frequently.

Other studies of policing indicate for the low representation of females in the OCS. Smith and Gray’s study of the Metropolitan police suggests that male officers tend to adopt paternalistic attitudes towards female offenders who are less likely to be stopped, arrested and charged. In other words , females are less likely to be stereotyped ‘suspicious’ or criminal.

Humphrey argues that the police stop and search black people indiscriminately for drug offences, carrying offence weapons, etc In a way they will never in normal policing run the risk of doing in the white community. Smith and Gray confirm this picture and report that, on average six out of ten young blacks are stopped five times a year. Studies of race and policing indicate that the OCS may tell us more about police attitudes towards black people i.e institutional racism, than they do about black criminality. Phillips argues, the OCS prove little ‘expect a tendency to arrest blacks’

Research into the social background of magistrates and judges has raised the question of whether there is class, gender and racial bias in the system. Hood has shown that almost 80% of magistrates are from the professional classes 1 and 11. There is an almost complete absence of unskilled working class people on the magistrate’s bench and marked under representation of black and Asian magistrates.

Griffith’s research indicates the vast majority of judges are from social classes 1 and 11 and up to 70% of them attended top public schools and Oxbridge. Furthermore judges, with only a few exceptions, male and white and over average age.

Hood’s study of 3300 cases heard in the west Midlands crown courts in 1989 suggests that black male have a 17% greater chance of receiving a custodial sentence than whites for the same offence.

Judicial attitudes may be gender-biased too. Worrall notes that women who conform to a feminine stereotype are more likely to be treated leninenty by the courts whereas women who confidently argue their case or who are interpreted as ‘unfeminine’ by judges may receive more severe sentences.

For traditional Marxists, working-class may dominate the official statistics but it is a minor problem when compared with crimes committed by the powerful such as white collar crime, corporate crime(Enron?) and state crime. These do not generally appear in the OCS because:

• They are not defined as ‘serious crimes’ .
• If they are defined as crimes, they tend to be marginalized , they tend to be underreported, undetected and are not pursued as relentlessly as working-class crime by the police.
• If they are detected they are ‘under-punished’.

Stephen Box argued that the law and the OCS are used to criminalise the activities of the powerless and give society the impression that the ‘problem population’ is the working class and ethnic minority groups. However the OCS render the crimes of the powerful invisible. From Box’s perspective the OCS are ideological, they support the interests of the powerful and justify the continuation of class inequality. They tell us very little about the real level of crime in society and do little to help understand criminality.

The left realists Young and agree that the OCS may be unreliable because of the over-policing of certain social groups. However, using data from victim surveys of inner-city areas they conclude that Interpretivists are wrong to suggest that the OCS are mainly a product of police and judicial processes. They suggest that crime is mainly committed by working class and black people and it cuases real fear and pain for working class and black people living in inner-city areas who are its main victims. They therefore conclude that that the OCS are a useful tool alongside victim surveys and self reports for uncovering the reality of crime.

Task: In small groups prepare a presentation which answers the questions below:

1. Explain what is meant by the idea that the crime statistics are socially constructed.
2. What do your group conclude from evidence of sociological studies about the large number of ethnic minority people in the OCS?
3. What did Hood’ study of West midlands Crown Courts conclude? Does your group agree, and does your group think the same conclusion would be reached all over the UK?
4. Summarise the Marxist critique of the OCS.
5. What do left realists say about the OCS?