About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about the so-called 'dark figure of crime', focusing in particular on: (i) defining this as the difference between the number of crimes reported in official police statistics (2019: 5.6 million crimes reported) and crime and victimisation surveys (2019: 12 million crimes reported); (ii) the question of why there are so many crimes not reported to the police; (iii) the scale of the dark figure of crime, and how this varies by type of crime; (iv) the difference between reported crime and recorded crime, and the reasons for this difference; (v) the reasons why a victim of crime might not report that crime to the police.

About the lecturer

Dr Stephanie Fohring in Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at Northumbria University. Her research is victim-focused with particular interest in psychological aspects of victimisation, victimisation surveys, victim labelling, victim experiences of reporting crime and the criminal justice system, violence against women, vicarious trauma and post-traumatic growth.