HEALTH AND SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

Health and Social Science Research

Health and Social Science Research

Introduction

The data selected for analysis is 'Statistics Bulletin CrJ/2005/8 PRISON STATISTICS SCOTLAND, 2004/05'. The data describes Scottish prison statistics forms part of The Scottish Executive Justice Department series of bulletins on aspects of the criminal justice system. The rational behind choosing the data is because there is no existing commentary on the statistics so the descriptive statistical work, analysis and commentary.

Section 1



1. Arithmetic Mean

The first task is to find the mean for the variables Serious assault and attempted murder, Housebreaking, Theft of a motor vehicle. The mean is the most commonly-used measure of central tendency. The mean is the most commonly-used measure of central tendency. Mean is a measure of central tendency which provide a value that acts as a representative of the values of all the outcomes of the data.

The table below list the arithmetic mean for Serious assault and attempted murder, Housebreaking, Theft of a motor vehicle.

Main crime/offence

1996/97

1997/98

1998/99

1999/2000

2000/01

2001/02

2002/03

2003/04

2004/05

Mean

Serious assault and attempted murder

150

147

148

170

202

218

284

294

304

213

Housebreaking

478

409

443

389

332

296

210

191

160

323.1111

Theft of a motor vehicle

380

334

314

242

232

158

129

95

79

218.1111

From the table it can be seen that the housebreaking offense is more serious than the serious assault and attempted murder and theft of a motor vehicle. The average of Serious assault and attempted murder is 323.111 compared to housebreaking and theft of a motor vehicle . The averages of serious assault and attempted murder and theft of a motor vehicle are relatively equal for the data from 1996/97—2004/05.

2. Percentages Change

The table below represents the percentage changes for the three categories discussed above in the first section.

Main crime/offence

1996/97

2004/05

Percentage Change

Serious assault and attempted murder

7.8247261

15.85811

102.6666667

Housebreaking

16.437414

5.502063

-66.52719665

Theft of a motor vehicle

19.358125

4.024452369

-79.21052632

From the percentages it can be said that there is a drastic increase (102.666%) in the crime of serious assault and attempted murder. In 1996/97, serious assault and attempted murder comprised of 7.8 % of the total crime committed which in 2004/05 became 15.858% of the total crime.

There was also a drastic decrease in the crimes of housebreaking and theft of a motor vehicle. Housebreaking reduced to 5.502% in 1996/97 as compared to 16.437 in 2004/05 i.e. 66.527% decrease. Theft of a motor vehicle reduced from 19.358% to 4.024% i.e. 79.210% decrease in the crime.

3. Why mean can be Misleading?

While measures of central tendency are useful in their ability to represent a large amount of information, they should always be interpreted carefully. The mean is the measure of central tendency that is most frequently cited in popular usage of statistics, but it can be misleading without an understanding of how it was derived.

Imagine being told that the average theft from motor vehicle is 218. This appears to be a large amount for a year. However, suppose that this average included the high theft in a given year. By including the two much higher values in the calculation of the mean salary, these two divergent values, known as outliers, will influence, or skew the mean toward a higher value, Unlike the median and mode, which are much less influenced ...