CRIME STATISTICS
Home Office Figures
What is it?
Home Office figures are based on police
records
Methodology primary data is collected from
the courts, police cautioning records, and
arrest records
Why do it?
• Seen as producing an official picture of Methodology: self-completion questionnaires
the true nature of crime in the UK.
• It allows year-on-year comparisons to
be made from 1876 onwards
• It only records crime dealt with by the
police, such as hidden crimes – tax
evasion, fraud
• What they find out during 2001-2
• Drug offences 2% of recorded crime
• Violent crime 15%
• Burglary 16%
Self –Report Studies
What is it?
These studies use questionnaires or interviews
to collect information about individuals and
asks them to admit to the number of crimes
they have committed. The data is then
compared to official conviction rates
Different research units do their own self-
report studies – the Home Office does one
& face-to-face interviews; stratified random
sample of 1700 respondents + booster sample
of ethnic minorities;
Why do it?
To find out which sections of society are likely
to have committed crimes and how much
crime there really is as only 3% of crime in
England and Wales ends with a conviction
What they find out:
• Crime is normal as it would seem most
of use commit a crime at one time or
another
• Yet frequent law breaking is rare
British Crime Survey
What is it?
Instead of relying on police records these
studies the Home office conducts
‘victimization studies’ these ask people if they
have been the victim of crime
Methodology: annual study; stratified random
sample of people in private households;
40,000 + respondents; stratified random
sample; self-completion questionnaires &
face-to-face interviews
Why do it?
This survey shows how unreliable official
statistics are
What they find out:
• Only 42% of crimes are reported to
police
• Whether or not a crime is reported is
dependent on what type of crime it is.
94% of robberies are reported, but just
33% of vandalism
• Reasons for non-reporting – reprisals,
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• Homicides 886 recorded
Rapes (female) 9,008 – Male 735
Problems
Only offences recorded by police are recorded,
hidden crime ignored
Something must be defined as a crime before
it’s recorded – elder abuse ignored
Not all offences reported to police are
recorded
Different police forces deal with some
incidents in different ways for example
Nottingham police record all crimes involving
£10 or less, Echo reported how Poole police
were ignoring crimes of £70 or less
Police priorities change, sudden purges on
immigration & paedophillia raise these figures
while other crimes put in second place
• More males commit than females
commit crimes
• More young people tend to commit
crimes
• Most self-report studies show a link
between social class and criminal
behaviour, with the underclass
committing more street crimes of
robbery, theft etc. Yet this could be due
to most self-report studies focussing on
these types of crimes at the expense of
fraud, domestic violence, child abuse
etc
Problems
• Traditionally they researched male
juvenile delinquency
• Tended to focus on street crime
• Ignore hidden crimes child abuse,
domestic violence etc
• Ignores middle-class crime like fraud
seen as too trivial; fear of police
40% of incidents reported to police were not
recorded as crimes in the categories of crime
used in the BCS
Problems
• Hazel Croall says the BCS is not
reliable as:
• It can only record crimes which
victims are aware of and therefore it
excludes many crimes
• Results reflect ‘respondents definitions
of crime which might not be the same
as legal classifications
• They are limited by students’ memory
• Survey restricted to households (no
hostels), doesn’t record crimes against
businesses or those by or in institutions
• The Survey only interviews people
post 16, therefore omits crimes against
younger people
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