Advantages of Official Crime Statistics

Official crime statistics are favoured by positivist sociologists. They suggest the following advantages.

They offer the opportunity to identify trends in crime over time. For example, they show that crime has sharply increased from the1950s until the early 1990s, and has fluctuated since then.
They provide useful information on the social make up of offenders. For example, crime statistics show that offenders are often working class, male, juveniles, of which a high proportion are blacks.

It is possible to use the statistics to generate and test sociological explanations of crime. For example, left realists largely take official statistics at face value and develop a causal explanation of working class, male, juvenile crime in terms of marginalisation, relative deprivation and subcultures.

They help government’s shape and evaluate their policies on law and order. For example, recent rises in crime have persuaded the government to introduce restorative justice programmes (bringing offenders and victims together).

They are easily accessible and up-to-date. For example, the Home Office publishes most crime statistics yearly.

It is possible to use statistics based on offences cleared up to measure the effectiveness of the police.

It is possible to generalise from official crime statistics given their large scale nature.

Professor Sarbene