Topic outline
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What: Who are more likely to be offenders and victims?
Why: To comprehend what social factors increase risk of offending
Watch
Length: 25 minutes
Watch this presentation on the correlates of crime.
Activity 5.2 - Crime Mapping and Perception
Sociologists have pointed to the correlation between lower socio-economic status of neighbourhoods and the higher levels of crime. However, as we discussed in relation to micro sociological perspectives this is a fairly imprecise correlation and it also relies on issues such as police discretion, the level of (over)policing in the area and the amount of situational crime prevention. To attain a sense of what is the actual level of property crime in areas of Adelaide, become familiar with the South Australia Crime Mapping website that has 5 years of suburb based crime data.
Follow the steps below to complete your analysis of crime and socio-economic status:
- Select three Adelaide suburbs of varying socio-economic status. A suburb can only be analysed a maximum of three times so make sure you check your peers' posts in the forum before continuing.
- Now look at these suburbs in the Crime mapping tool which can be found on the Data SA Website.
- Evaluate if there is any sense of a correlation. Is there a sufficient number of crimes recorded to make a solid judgement of a correlation between socio-economics and crime given the possibility of intervening variables outlined above?
- Now compare your results to the suburb of Elizabeth (5112) in Northern Adelaide, traditionally high in terms of the number of assaults.
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