Question

Discuss two issues with using arrest data to understand a crime problem

Answer 1

Issues with using arrest data to understand a crime problem include the fact that;

The arrest rate may not reflect the prevalence rate of the crime it just represents the police crackdown rate. Thus the use of a small number offenders who are arrested to understand a problem and extrapolating it to a larger population is an incorrect method. Thus it is an incorrect representation of the prevalence of a crime and an incorrect projection for the population.