OCR GCSE Psychology

Types of crime

A crime is an act that breaks the law and can be punished by the state. Psychologists group crimes by what the offender does or what they gain, because the explanations for one group do not always fit another.

Some offences belong in more than one group. A robbery is acquisitive because it aims to take property, and it is violent because force is used.

Criminal behaviour as a social construct

A social construct is something that exists because a society agrees that it does, rather than because it is a fixed fact of nature. Crime is one. No act is criminal in itself; it becomes a crime when a society writes a law against it, and different societies and different periods draw the line in different places.

Deviation from norms

Norms are the unwritten rules about what is acceptable behaviour in a group. Criminal and anti-social behaviour usually deviates from the norms of the society in which it takes place, which is why a society makes a law about it. A norm can change without a law changing at first. Smoking indoors in public places was once ordinary in the UK and is now both illegal and widely disapproved of, so a behaviour that deviated from nothing became a crime as the norm moved.

The role of culture

Culture is the set of shared values, customs and beliefs of a group. It affects which behaviours are labelled criminal, so the same act can be a crime in one country and legal in another. Drinking alcohol is legal in the UK for adults and illegal in some countries where religion or law forbids it. Some drugs are sold openly in one place and carry severe penalties in another. Culture also shapes anti-social behaviour: loud public celebration might be accepted in one community and treated as a disturbance in another.

The consequence is that a psychologist cannot take the definition of crime as given. An explanation of why people offend has to be read alongside the question of who decided the behaviour was an offence.

How crime is measured

Governments and researchers want to know how much crime there is, whether it is rising or falling, and what kinds there are. Two sources are used.

Official statistics

Official statistics are figures collected by the police and other government bodies, such as the number of crimes recorded by police forces, arrests, prosecutions and prison sentences. They are published regularly and cover a whole country, so trends can be followed over many years and compared between areas.

Their main weakness is that they only count crime that is reported and recorded. Many crimes are never reported because the victim thinks the police would do nothing, is afraid, is embarrassed, or does not realise a crime has been committed. Some crimes are reported but the police do not record them, or record them under a different category. The crime that is missing from the figures is often called the dark figure of crime, so official statistics usually understate how much crime there is. A rise in recorded crime can also come from a change in how crimes are recorded or in how willing people are to report, rather than from more offending.

Self-report

In self-report, people are asked, usually by questionnaire or interview, which crimes they have committed, or which crimes they have been a victim of. It can reach crime that never comes to the police's attention, so it often finds more offending than official statistics do. It is also the only way to find out how many people have committed an offence that went unreported, and why.

Its weakness is honesty. People may forget, may exaggerate to appear tough, or may leave out what they did because of social desirability, the wish to be seen in a good light, or fear that they could be prosecuted. A sample may also fail to include the people who offend most, because they are less likely to take part. Results from self-report therefore depend on how far the participants can be trusted, and researchers often promise anonymity to improve honesty.

Comparing the two

Used together, the two give a fuller picture than either alone, because each is weak where the other is strong.