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What is Criminology?
Criminology is the scientific study of crime, criminals, criminal behavior and corrections. Criminology also studies society’s response to crime and to prevention. This includes examination of evidence, hereditary and psychological causes of crime, different modes of investigation and conviction and efficiency of punishment and corrections.

Crime is measured three ways.
The Uniform Crime report, this method is based on crimes that are reported to the police, these crimes are then divided into two types of crime, the High profile crimes are known as indexed crimes, these are likely to carry stiffer penalties than non-indexed crime and are also likely to receive higher media coverage, Indexed crimes are as follows, Homicide, Aggravated Rape, Aggravated Assault Robbery, Burglary, Larceny/theft, Motor Vehicle Theft and Arson all other crimes are Non-Indexed crimes. The difficulty with obtaining realistic figures based on crimes, which are reported is that not all crime is reported and it is sometimes impossible for someone to know that a crime has actually been committed. Crimes most likely to be reported are missing persons, Murder and Property crime this usually must be reported before an insurance claim can be made. There are crimes, which cannot be reported such as rape when the date rape drug has been administered to the victim they will probably have no recall of events for approx 48 hrs and then it may only be flashbacks. Some offences are unlikely to be reported because the victim is unable to report the crime due to fear of retaliation or because of the victims ignorance that laws are being broken e.g. child abuse. Domestic violence is also unlikely to be reported because the victim is unwilling to report the crime, Blackmail is also unlikely to be reported for the obvious reason that the victim has done something they would rather no-one else knew about. Those who commit fraud are unlikely to turn themselves in and the victims of the fraudulent act are unlikely to know that the fraud has taken place. Driving offences and Drugs offences are also unlikely to be reported to the police because the victim is likely to be involved in the crimes. There is also the problem of the police being able to manipulate crime statistics and arrest figures may be biased or not uniform from county to county, furthermore some crimes are particularly difficult to detect and may not be included in the figures, there are crimes which are outside the jurisdiction of the police force such as Vat fraud which is monitored by customs and excise and industrial crimes which come under the umbrella of the health and safety executive. Therefore some types of crime may be omitted from the figures giving an unrealistic picture of crime.

Self report Studies rely on the honesty of the respondent and therefore the accuracy of the figures can be questioned, those commissioned by Government Agencies are not likely to get the full picture of the level of crime being committed because the respondent may tell lies to avoid prosecution for their offences and those self report studies commissioned by unofficial interest magazines on Drug Crime for instance may well feature instances of bravado in the respondents answers. These Self Report studies often indicate that trivial crimes are more common than official statistics show and that they are spread among all classes. Self Report studies help to assess the Dark Figure of Crime and can be used to supplement the official figures giving a clearer picture of unreported crimes.

The final method of compiling crime figures is through Victim Crime Surveys, it would appear that this method is more accurate than the preceding two because these studies indicate the victimisation level. These studies are taken from randomly selected population samples and ask for the individual’s experience of certain types of crime. Victim Surveys are regarded as being valuable to indicate crime trends public attitudes towards law enforcement agencies, can provide information on unrecorded crimes, can provide other additional relevant information such as the age of the victim, Government figures do not record this information. Victim surveys are also a good way of measuring how accurate crime statistics are and can help determine risk assessment. Victim Surveys can be flawed because they cannot measure certain types of crime such as white collar offences, accuracy cannot be guaranteed because of the victims recall of events, the victim may not recall all the incidents and the dates on which they occurred, there may be bias in the type of sampling used and certain areas such as inner cities may be over represented in sampling, there is also the issue of a victim being stigmatised or embarrassed at being the victim of the crime and therefore they may not wish to divulge the required information regarding the crime. The victim may not understand the questions accurately and therefore may give the wrong answer. There is also the issue of what are portrayed as victimless crimes such as prostitution and drugs offences, there are other issues such as the victim perceiving the crime as being too trivial to bother the police for instance.

The unrecorded levels of crime are collectively known as the Dark Figure of Crime, it has been estimated that this figure is possibly 50% higher than official crime statistics. This estimation can be made by using the supplementary information provided by self report studies and victim surveys.

Although there are problems in measuring the true figure of crime a combination of all of the methods of collecting data at least provide those who theorise about how to tackle crime and which laws need amended or revoked or implemented with a basis from which to start, by combining the methods criminologists can reasonably estimate the dark figure of crime and thus give a more accurate picture from which to tackle the crimes which occur and devise crime prevention programmes and initiatives.

What is a Criminologist and what do they do?
A criminologist studies normal social behaviors and deviations from the norm. The criminologist is often an academic who studies crime and the law. They provide theoretical explanations of delinquent and criminal behavior, analyze criminal law and criminal behavior.

A criminologist studies crime by analyzing criminal behavior and methods of criminals. Criminologists work with and for law enforcement agencies developing profiles of particular types of crimes as well as gathering statistics on crime rates.
The criminologist not only studies or investigates the crimes they analyze the entire criminal justice system and its processes.

What do qualifications do criminologists generally need?
A criminologist needs an interest in human well-being and behavior A good criminologist is also a good communicator and listener. A criminologist needs to demonstrate responsibility, creativity, analytical thinking and problem-solving.