Becoming A Statistic: the Attrition Funnel

Simple PowerPoint Presentation that can be used to illustrate the process of becoming an official crime statistic. Can also be used as an introduction to the concept of “Becoming”, but that’s just an added bonus.

The notion of “Becoming” is a concept usually attached to identity and the idea that individual identities are not created “fully formed” but instead develop over time. In basic terms, being born biologically male or female does not automatically translate into how masculinity and femininity is performed in later life. Rather, how we become men and women is actively shaped by the culture into which we are born.

Given this is such a simple, yet powerful, idea for students to grasp I thought it might be helpful to extend it to other areas such as, in this particular instance, the social construction of Official Crime Statistics in the shape of Police Recorded Crime (PRC).

In basic terms, the question to ask students is “How does a crime become a statistic?” and to help you illustrate it I’ve created the Attrition Funnel, a PowerPoint Presentation based on Sellin’s (1931) argument that the value of official statistics declines the further they move away from the original crime. Each step in the recording chain was essentially less reliable than the last, an idea developed into what Barclay (1991) called the Attrition Funnel and visually-represented in the Presentation because, as we’re all aware, if you can’t see it, it doesn’t really exist.

The Presentation identifies four major hurdles “a crime” has to jump in order to become a Police Recorded Crime:

1. Crime Not Considered: the victim doesn’t know they’re a victim.

2. Crime Not Reported: the victim doesn’t report their victimisation to the police.

3. Crime Not Recorded: the police decide not to record the crime (“No Criming”).

4. Crime Not Categorised: the police acknowledge a crime has been committed but do not categorise it as such.

Just click the appropriate part of the funnel as it’s revealed to present each stage and it’s associated examples.

If you want to display each stage individually simply click the currently displayed stage to hide it.

Download the Attrition Funnel, a PowerPoint Presentation