Outline and Assess the Importance of Victim Surveys for Sociological Understanding of Crime and Deviance

There are many problems associated with the police recording of crime statistics, the main problem being that many crimes go unreported. As an alternative it was suggested that a cross section of the population should be asked about the crimes that have been commited against them. It was argued that more people would be likley to report crimes to an anonymous survey than to the police.
There are several reasons why so many crimes go unreported. Some people may be too shocked or ashamed to report a crime, such as in cases of rape. Some may be in fear of reprisal, or may be protecting the offender, such as in cases of domestic violence. Other victims may think that the crime is too trivial or that the police would not be able to help anyway.
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