Are official statistics a reliable source of information about crime in Britain?

Crime in Britain has steadily increased, with the exception of small decreases in the middle 50s and mid 90s, each year since records began in the mid nineteenth century. Over half of all these offences ar for petty offences much(prenominal) as theft and handling stolen goods. In fact the legal age of all offences are made up of crimes against property.

The majority of the prison population of the United Kingdom consists of young males, ethnic minorities and those from humble occupations. In fact criminals are predominantly male, as they demand up 83% of known offenders. The most frequently employ and accepted measures into the extent of crime are statistical selective cultivation enter by police and law courts. This data is quiet annually and investigates the number of crimes committed within certain categories, which is recorded by the police.

The statistics of the United Kingdom are produced by the hearthstone Office (known as Criminal Statistics of England & Wales). Both Scotland and Federal Ireland have their own respective departments. These statistics include all the information astir(predicate) the crimes that are committed and the personal information about each offender. Crimes have been recorded in this way since 1874 in the UK, and the records have shown that there has been a dramatic rise in crime in recent years.



This also matches most another(prenominal) countries in the world, with the exception of Switzerland. But how accurately do these records parade the true amount of crime in this country?

As they are published regularly they would seem to therefore be a reliable indicator of crime. However, these statistics are perhaps the most unreliable of all published figures on social issues and are very much not taken seriously by criminologists.

There are numerous problems with relying on official statistics to measure crime levels. Firstly, according to Maguire...

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