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The British Crime Survey

The British Crime Survey. Face to face interviews with a sample of adults (16+) living in private households in England and Wales Measures crime victimisation rates, experience of crime and public attitudes

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The British Crime Survey

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  1. The British Crime Survey • Face to face interviews with a sample of adults (16+) living in private households in England and Wales • Measures crime victimisation rates, experience of crime and public attitudes • First survey in 1982, and approximately every two years between 1982 and 2000 (sample size 10,000 to 20,000) • In 2001, introduced continuous survey with a sample of 40,000 interviews per year and adopted calibration weighting (increasing to over 50,000 interviews from 2004-05)

  2. Why is the survey important? • Provides a more comprehensive picture of crime than the police recorded statistics including: • unreported and unrecorded crime • robust and reliable trends in certain key crime types • relative risks of victimisation • information about victim’s experience of crime • public attitudes towards crime, anti-social behaviour, and fear of crime • security precautions taken and other issues • Used to evaluate a range of policies related to crime reduction • Used to monitor key Home Office and police service performance indicators on crime, fear of crime, anti-social behaviour and confidence in the police

  3. Moving to continuous sampling • New performance management culture required robust measures • at sub-national level (for 43 police force areas) • on a regular annual basis • Prior to 2001, the survey was carried out in the first 3 months of the year on victimisation relating to the preceding calendar year • A review of BCS methodology expressed “serious concern” regarding the feasibility of using the old BCS design with a 40,000 annual sample to meet these demands • Now uses continuous sampling throughout the year • The recall period is now the 12 months prior to interview (with new procedures adopted using a calendar to aid recall) • Adopted ‘calibration weighting’ to take account of differential response rates between regions, age groups and genders

  4. Example Questionnaire Structure • Full sample (Main survey and demographic) • Victimisation ‘screener’ questions • Fear of crime • Disorder and antisocial behaviour • Confidence in the CJS • Socio-demographic and lifestyle information • Quarter samples (Additional questions) • Contact with and attitudes towards the police and criminal justice system • Crime prevention and security measures • Ad hoc crime topics e.g. Technology crimes and Antisocial behviour • Victims (Victim Forms) • Details of victimisation incident • Reporting to the police, contact by Victim Support • Police response and satisfaction with the police • All 16 to 59 year olds (Self completion elements) • Knowledge and use of drugs • Drinking behaviour • Sexual victimisation

  5. Comparing survey and recorded crime figures To compare need to limit to a ‘comparable subset’ of crimes covered by both BCS and recorded crime, which includes: vandalism, burglary, bicycle and vehicle-related theft, theft from the person, robbery, common assault, and wounding. • The main BCS statistics exclude: • ‘Victimless crimes’ (e.g. drug dealing) • Murder (unavailable for interview!) • Fraud • Sexual offences (small number /disclosure) • Adjustments are made to estimate for: • victims aged under 16 • commercial targets

  6. The proportion of all BCS crimes reported to the police and recorded by them, year to September 2003

  7. Reporting rates, 2003-04 Of those respondents who experienced a crime but did not report it to the police, for property crimes around four fifths said this was because the crime was “too trivial” or the police could not do anything about it. For violent crimes, almost a half felt it was too trivial, but a further half additionally stated that the incident was a private matter or they preferred to deal with it themselves.

  8. Indexed trends in reporting & recording of crime, and all BCS crime, 1981 to 2003/04

  9. Some illustrations of information that is produced from the British Crime Survey

  10. Trends in all BCS crimes, 1981 to 2003-04 Crime in England and Wales peaked in 1995 and has fallen in each successive survey since then

  11. Trends in the main BCS crime categories, comparing 2003-04 with 1995

  12. The risk of being a victim of crime in 2003/04

  13. Adults most at risk of violence in 2003/04

  14. Worry about violence in England and Wales, 1998 to 2003/04

  15. Other information on violence • Victims knew their offender in more than half of all violent incidents • Victims judged that there was an offender of school age in ten per cent of violent incidents • Victims believed offenders to be under the influence of alcohol in almost half (47%) of violent incidents • Over a fifth (22%) of muggings involved four or more offenders. The 2001 BCS also included a self-completion module to measure the extent and nature of domestic violence, sexual victimisation and stalking and showed: • Prevalence of domestic violence approximately 5 times that of the main face-to-face BCS measure in the year prior to interview • One in five (21%) women and one in ten (10%) men over the age of 16 experience domestic violence (threat or force) in their lifetime

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