Sociology - Self-Report Studies

Crime is an act that breaks the law and is punished, while deviance is an act that is seen to be abnormal and goes against the norms and values of mainstream society. Within society there are many methods which are used to measure and obtain data on crime. One of these methods are self-report studies, this method aims to build a true picture of the deviant and their social characteristics such as age, class and ethnicity.

In order to truly understand and fully explain the usefulness of self-report studies, there needs to be an understanding on the key concepts that are linked with the method. Self-report studies are a form of statistics that aim to create a true picture of the deviant and their social characteristics. This is in response to the weakness in recording crime and the fact that most criminals are not part of the criminal justice system. The studies are undertaken using interviews or questionnaires and aim to ask individuals if they have been involved in criminal activities. When self-report studies are were first used they tended to ignore serious offences such as murder and only concentrated on minor acts of delinquency such as petty theft or street crime. However the self-report studies have improved and broadened in order to include more and more serious offences so that it provides a true reflection of crime within society. Self-report studies employ the technique of using questionnaires or interviews to collects information about the individuals and ask them to admit to the number of crimes they have committed. From the data that is collected from the interviews it can then be compared with official conviction rates to discover which offences are most likely to be convicted. Self-report studies also gain information regarding the social characteristics of criminals; this includes ethnicity, class, gender and religion. These key concepts were an integral part of Farrington et al's study which used the method of self-report studies. Farrington conducted a longitudinal study on delinquent development. From the findings it showed that victim surveys tend to show that the official crime rates exaggerate the extent of the working class and male crimes. Farrington found that victim surveys were problematic in research for crime and deviance and found that there were a number of problems associated with the method.

In evaluation towards the usefulness of self-report studies it can be argued that it is not a useful way to measure crime. This is because while conducting self-report studies the respondents may stagger the truth or may not tell it at all. This is because the respondents are embarrassed of their situation and they won't want to reveal details about their criminal act. Also the respondents are likely to exaggerate the situation and exaggerate the truth which shows there isn't a true reflection of crime that is being portrayed. The respondents are also very likely to have forgotten the particular incident as they have shut it away as a means to deal with the criminal act. Through self-report studies there are only a restricted amount of offences that may be covered at one time, thus meaning once again it is not truly reflective towards all crimes within society. This can be to do with the questions and how they focus on trivial offences thus leading to only a limited number of offenses being listed and white collar and corporate crime being ignored. This shows the studies are once again are not a true representation of crime. The samples used within the studies are also distorted, mainly because the studies focus on groups like students and ignore crimes committed by other groups. From the differing views on the use of self-report studies it can be said that it has positives in providing a true picture of the deviant in terms of characteristics but has its negatives as there is a lack of validity within the studies.

Without self-report studies it can be argued that the information involving the social characteristics of a deviant can never be found and maintained. This can be explained through the fact that self-report studies is a useful method which uses techniques that finds in-depth information about the deviant which leads to explanations on the reasons for crime and deviance. Self-report studies gain information from its respondents by using questionnaires or conducting interviews, because it is seen as an adequate method to collect vital information that leads to explanations on criminal acts. From collecting information from interviews and questionnaires, self-report studies then gain information about the social characteristics of the criminals, which includes ethnicity, class, religion, gender and so on. From collecting valuable information on social characteristics they will be able to determine to discover from the respondents which criminal offences are most likely to be committed, thus meaning those particular crimes can be monitored and stopped. This view can be backed up by the work of Williams who studied the use of self-report studies. From his findings Williams argued that self-report studies are a useful and positive method to measure crime.