Free Sociology resources

Official crime statistics are generated by what is recorded by the police and then what is processed through the criminal justice system. In 2014 the Office for National Statistics removed their "gold standard" from police statistics on the grounds that they were simply unreliable due to inconsistencies in recording and even deliberate fiddling of the statistics. Alongside the Crime Survey of England and Wales, they are our key source of information in relation to trends and patterns in criminality and victimisation, so sociologists must be cautious explaining such trends and drawing conclusions based on this data which may be far from accurate.