How would you define crime? According to Google, a crime is defined as an action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by law and deviance, a state of diverging from usual or accepted standards, especially in social or sexual behaviour. However, I believe that a crime cannot be accurately defined because it is socially constructed. This means that people in society have different opinions on what a crime actually is for example in Switzerland, it is illegal to own only one guinea pig because it may get lonely. Also, Singapore does not allow you to smoke in public at all whilst some countries regulate where you can smoke and in the USA, smoking is regulated by both federal, state and local laws.
But what is the 'Dark Figure' of crime. well this refers to the percentage of crime that is not reported or recorded. A big percentage of this unreported crime comes from the so called White Collar Crime. This is because they are simply less detectable for example tax evasion, fraud and misuse of expense accounts. White collar crimes are ones that are committed by those higher on the social hierarchy and are conducted within the context of everyday business and the workplace and not on the streets. As a result this makes it difficult for these crimes to be discovered.
it has been estimated by the police that around 67% of household theft crimes and 64% of sexual assaults go unreported. So can we trust Official Statistics published by the Home Office? well, although the percentage of unreported crime has decreased and we can allocate a rough picture of crime committed, we cannot deny that they are not 100% accurate.
By Umeh Jamiath
