As Nils Christie argued, crime is a property of the state (2004). As such, it can be defined by the same systems of ideals that influence the state. Consequently, it can be argued that crime statistics, which refer to a category of human acts that society considers deviant, lack objectivity (Dorling and Simpson, 1999). The statistics provided are therefore probably not accurate. To a certain extent it could be deduced that they are a reflection of society, of those who present the data and above all of those who accumulate them. The facts themselves become a socially constructed foundation for social knowledge, which inevitably becomes subjective. This essay aims to discuss how ideological biases within the police and, to some extent, the media are reflected in crime statistics. Police crime records have been a primary source for crime statistics for decades, but these records are known to greatly represent a particular ideological bias: institutional racism. As defined by Macpherson (1999), institutional racism is the collective failure of an organization to provide an adequate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. Although his accounts have been criticized, there is evidence in studies that ideologies about particular groups have influenced policing to some extent. One example is Westley's study of violence and policing in the 1970s. The study demonstrated that the police had a set of ideologies about the type of characteristics a criminal possessed. Indeed, several officers believed that the criminal was generally unemployed, uneducated, and resorted to crime to obtain what he could not legally acquire (1970). During the period of the study, t...... middle of paper ... ... Farrell, R. (1977b) 'Normal homicides and the law', American Sociological Review, KLLII, pp. 16-32Tarling, P. (1993) Analyzing Offending: Data, Models, Interpretations, London: HMSO.Walklate, S. (2001) Gender, crime and criminal justice. 1st ed. Cullompton: Willan Publishing. Press. 26Westley, W. A. ​​(1970). Violence and the police: a sociological study of law, customs and morality. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Wilson, JO and Herrnstein, RJ (1985) Crime and Human Nature, New York: Touchstone.Wintour, P and Dodd, V. (2007). Blair blames the wave of murders on black culture. Available: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/apr/12/ukcrime.race. Last accessed December 12, 2013.Yates, Y.M., (2005). A statistical portrait of the American working class. Available: http://monthlyreview.org/2005/04/01/a-statistical-portrait-of-the-us-working-class. Last access December 12th 2013.