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Statistical Data

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Assess the usefullness of statistical data in the study of crime and deviance
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Introduction
Assess the usefulness of statistical data in the study of crime and deviance. Official statistics seem to indicate that crime levels are rapidly on the increase, from being a few hundred thousand in the 50's and 60's to more than 6 million in today's world. However the debate in the usefulness of statistics in relation to the study of crime has provoked many different arguments. Durkheim and Conte are the Positivists who believe that they are useful. They believe this because using statistics is the closest sociology can get to a scientific experiment. As statistics provoke quantitave data it is open to be testable and comparable with previous results. Against this belief are the Anti-Positivists who say that statistical data is not reliable, as it doesn't establish a cause and effect for the reasons behind committing crime. It may depend upon the context of the situation an individual is placed in; therefore it does not look at the meaning behind committing crimes. They are also hard to compare over time and lack validity due to problems with obtaining statistics. The reliability of official statistics can be questioned, as although positivists claim that they are used for correlation analysis, the anti-positivists dismiss this as they say other factors that have occurred over time and culture change have caused crime figures to be irrelative to each other. ...read more.
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A additional alternative is the Local Crime Survey. These are micro studies that look at certain areas crime rates. Left realists favour them as they produce a much clearer picture of the undiscovered figures of statistics as they concentrate on a smaller area but in much more depth. From this local issues can be uncovered allowing local police to improve the areas

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