The British Crime Survey

Policies are developed according to the changes in society, such as crime rates. Crime rates are recorded in crime surveys, like the Crime Survey for England and Wales, and some are conducted by institutions like the police. These official statistics can be factors in policy development, but unofficial statistics, such as those found in opinion polls and self-report surveys, can also shape the developments in policies. There are many ways that have been developed over the years to try to create the most accurate representation of crime, criminals and victims. In order to develop policies regarding crime, reliable statistics are needed. The question is, are official statistics good enough by themselves to point the way to new policy developments, …show more content…
Now the Crime Survey for England and Wales, it is big enough to collected data from 46,000 in the year 2010-11. The victimisation questions asked are mostly the same every time, asking the respondent if they have been a victim of any one of a range of crimes in the last twelve months, and if so, they will then have a follow-up questionnaire and demographic questionnaire to complete. In the 1982 survey, four times as much crime was recorded than there was in the official police statistics for the time. From this first survey it was discovered that, although there was a lot of unreported and unrecorded crime when you compare the results with police statistics for the same year, those crimes that the police did not record, or did not get reports about, were mostly petty crimes. These crimes had a very low level of harm to anyone meaning they could be considered irrelevant in some people’s eyes. Also, some may argue that it is not worth bothering with the relatively trivial offences that escape official attention (Koffman, 1996). The main advantages of using the Crime Survey for England and Wales is that it includes both reported and unreported crime and so is more inclusive, and it also provides more information surrounding the crime and the victim of the crime which is useful in trying to prevent crime and protecting people who are most likely to be …show more content…
One review of the Crime Statistics for England and Wales said that ‘there is general agreement that the overarching purpose for collecting information on crime should be to reduce the impact of crime on society’ (Home Office, 2000; 9; cited in Hale, 2005, p.39). By collecting this data, it means that it is not so difficult to see who is being targeted and which crimes are most popular, making it somewhat easier to update existing policies or create new ones, based on this more accurate information, to try to reduce the amount of