Can Statistics Be Trusted Essay

Introduction

This paper will provide an analysis of sources concerning knife crime within Scotland and how effective they are at covering the true nature of the chosen crime. Knife crime is important to focus on because it is an issue that is deemed to be critical by the general public and has been brought to light in a lot of different newspapers. Furthermore, knife crime is such a broad category that needs more distinction and attention so the umbrella term 'knife crime' does not contain such a varied and wide range of crimes from lethal to nonlethal. This report will contain an overall view of knife crime and describe what it is, then move on to analyze two different sources followed by an article from each, the sources are government statistics (Gov.UK) and a newspaper (The Sun). Finally, the two sources will be compared and then evaluated. To conclude the sources will be contrasted and compared to determine the value of each source when providing information about the true extent and nature of knife crime.

Overall view of crime

An individual must first understand that a true definition of a particular crime depends on the society, culture, and legal state that they inhabit as different societies place different values upon particular crimes. Furthermore, religion can influence a state's decisions as to what is and is not a crime. The legal definition of crime is 'An action prohibited by law and is punishable by the law', however, there is also the sociological definition of crime which focuses more on the cultural and social interactions that take place within society to cause crime. Essentially, the legal route focuses on the crime and only the crime whilst the sociological route focuses more on the causes of crime and how to prevent it from the root.

The house of Commons itself does not define knife crime, instead, this term was created by the media and since then has been used to refer to the illegal carrying of knives or the most common one, a stabbing. (Home Affairs Committee, 2008). Further issues with knife crime are that it represents a lack of control within society, to many individuals knife crime can look like a persistent issue that won't end, this is due to multitudes of reasons be it the media, personal experience, or government statistics showing a continuous increase in knife crime from 2014 till 2019.

Government data

GOV.The UK annually collects data from police records and presents them to the public. (Gov.UK, 2019) Data from national statistics can be trusted but only to a certain extent as multiple complications can arise. Different sources have their way of defining knife crime, for example, a hospital will only class an incident as a knife crime when an individual has been harmed and admitted to the hospital (NHS, 2019), however, a police officer could define this as an individual who is carrying a knife with intent of harm. This leads to inaccurate government statistics when regarding knife crime. Furthermore, there is the 'dark figure' of crime. When a crime is unreported, incorrectly classified, or completely ignored these cases go into what is known as the 'dark figure' This is an amount of crime that is not available in records and no individual can truly say how much-unreported crime has occurred. (Biderman. B, Reiss. A, 1967). Finally, government statistics rely upon a group of individuals to provide a whole picture and will often neglect the individual, this is useful for a wide range of data over a general population. However, this means that they neglect the sociological factors of an individual which means unless specific research is conducted, they won't understand why an individual will commit a crime.

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Gov.UK annually releases statistics on knife crime, the specific article referenced is from March 2019 to March 2020. The statistics showed a decrease of 3% (2,579) in knife crime (Gov.UK, 2019). This percentage decrease is largely theorized to be caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that is occurring. However, the report does not directly state why the pandemic has made this statistic go down, this leaves two possible theories - the first is that COVID-19 has forced individuals to stay inside, which means an individual will not feel the need to carry around a knife or there may be fewer individuals to possibly attack. Secondly, it could be theorised that the 'dark figure' of crime has increased, a possible explanation of this would be domestic abuse cases in which an abusive partner will brandish a knife, but because of COVID-19, the individual may not want to report this because they cannot leave their situation.

The media

The media plays a crucial role in developing the public opinion of crime, misinformed or not. Stanley Cohen in his 1972 book 'Folk Devils and Moral Panics' suggested that moral panic occurs when a 'Condition, episode, person or group of people emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests' and the media fuels this panic. Regarding knife crime, an example of this could be that a teenage male witnesses multiple newspaper articles that state the streets are dangerous. This causes panic and they may start to carry a knife around themselves, which increases the original problem which may not have been that prominent in the first place. Furthermore, newspapers tend to focus upon a specific individual and their story, they do not tend to try and group individuals unless they are specifically related in some way. This could be because an individual story will provide more interesting details and a more in-depth or personal story as opposed to looking at a general group of individuals who cannot be singled out or identified.

The Sun in 2019 wrote an article titled, 'War for Britain's streets, Cops 'Too Busy' to Log Thousands of unreported knife crimes, Report Claims'. The title of this article alone already is designed to attract attention and rally hatred or fear. The content of the article goes on to describe a police initiative designed to aid police when talking about knife crimes so they can accurately record data and categorize it correctly, however, they criticize it and twist it into a much more sinister story in which the police are incompetent of their jobs and are neglecting their duties. Furthermore, this article provides a great example of incorrect use of statistics, the 2018 references statistics from 2012 to achieve percentages that are big and intimidating - 'Under 18's assaulted with a sharp object is up 51 percent since 2012' (The Sun, 2019.). If this article had instead used the statistics from 2017, the percentage increase would be a lot less intimidating and would appear to be less urgent which is not what the paper wishes to do.

Comparison and Conclusion

When analyzing information presented by the media it is important to go to a reliable source to fact-check to make sure the information is reliable and accurate. Government sources have higher validity than newspapers, the government will provide accurate statistics based on the information they have collected but only that information. Newspapers on the other hand will manipulate and present statistics in a biased way to cause moral panic and to convince individuals that knife crime occurs frequently to the point they feel afraid and can end up contributing to the problem which will drive up the rates of knife crime. Newspapers also neglect crimes that are prominent such as fraud which occurs multiple times a day simply because they are not interesting enough but promote knife crime simply because it can catch attention, they are all about making a profit and not accurately depicting crime statistics. However, both the newspaper and government statistics fail to depict the true extent and nature of knife crime because it is nearly impossible to gather all the data required to provide a full picture of what is happening. Finally, government data goes into a lot more generalized detail than newspapers do, a newspaper will focus on a singular individual (Or individuals who have experienced the same crime) and base all their information, evidence, and facts upon them. However, the government will gather generalized data from a wide variety of places and contextualize them into a general report which will describe different levels of knife crime and how many individuals were charged for only carrying a knife which is not lethal to how many individuals committed homicide with their weapon.

To conclude, out of the two sources provided, government statistics were determined to be more valuable in describing the true nature and extent of knife crime because they reported quite accurate statistics and were there to inform. Newspapers were less valuable as they were centered around an individual and were presented to tell a story and cause panic as opposed to informing the public.