Guess Who?: Exploring the public's perceptions of perpetrators of crime.

This pilot study looked into who is perceived as the 'typical offender' by the public based on the characteristics of gender, race and age for murder, rape, child sexual offences, robbery, fraud and phishing. The field research was conducted in Birmingham and the questionnaire sample consisted of 156 participants (53.8% male and 46.2% female). The findings suggested that the perceived typical perpetrator for all crimes is male, white (except for robbery) and aged between 25 and 34 years old (except child sex offenders and fraudsters who would be older). While most of the public's perceptions of perpetrators were consistent with the existing literature and official statistics, indicating that the public have become more educated about crime, disparities also suggest media and other sources of information also play a role in creating their ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]