AC 1.6- collecting crime statistics
Introduction
Two of the ways crime statistics are recorded are Police Recorded Crime,
which are official statistics, and CESW, which is a victim survey. The Home
Office oversees the PRC and sends the statistical figures to the Office of
National Statistics, who publishes the information to the public. The details
listed link to the type of offence committed, the geographical location and
the date they happen, although it can be influenced by changes according to
policies and practices. A non-government organisation known as KANTAR
collects statistics for CESW by running surveys directly to the victims to try
and discover the dark figure of crime. The victim surveys are representative
of a sample of voluntary participants’ experience of crime, which has a wide
range of offences; crimes included may not have been reported to the police,
which is known as the dark figure of crime. The details include nature,
location, timing and the characteristics of the offender or victim. CESW is one
of the largest social surveys conducted in the UK, as it accounts for 50,000
interviewees every year in face-to-face interviews. The information from this
survey is then passed on to the Office for National Statistics, who record it
for publication.
Official statistics- police recorded crime (PRC)
PRC is useful as a measure for police activity, which is identified from these
statistics. It is also an indicator of crime trends, assuming the police remain
consistent over dealing with the crimes. Police statistics are also a reliable
measure of crimes that are often reported and recorded, for example
homicide and vehicle theft.
One of the strengths of PRC is that it is considered reliable as although the
results are obtained from different constabularies and different police
officers, they are done so using the same procedures and policies. However,
the different constabularies may classify the same incident differently, often
due to decriminalisation and subjectivity. Another limitation is reliability
being linked to accuracy, so errors could be made when details of the crimes
are recorded.
A strength of the PRC in terms of validity is that the statistics are based on
all the recorded crimes across England and Wales. On the other hand, the
statistics don’t account for unreported and unrecorded crimes, for example
the police recorded just over 45,000 rape cases in 2016-2017, but this
Introduction
Two of the ways crime statistics are recorded are Police Recorded Crime,
which are official statistics, and CESW, which is a victim survey. The Home
Office oversees the PRC and sends the statistical figures to the Office of
National Statistics, who publishes the information to the public. The details
listed link to the type of offence committed, the geographical location and
the date they happen, although it can be influenced by changes according to
policies and practices. A non-government organisation known as KANTAR
collects statistics for CESW by running surveys directly to the victims to try
and discover the dark figure of crime. The victim surveys are representative
of a sample of voluntary participants’ experience of crime, which has a wide
range of offences; crimes included may not have been reported to the police,
which is known as the dark figure of crime. The details include nature,
location, timing and the characteristics of the offender or victim. CESW is one
of the largest social surveys conducted in the UK, as it accounts for 50,000
interviewees every year in face-to-face interviews. The information from this
survey is then passed on to the Office for National Statistics, who record it
for publication.
Official statistics- police recorded crime (PRC)
PRC is useful as a measure for police activity, which is identified from these
statistics. It is also an indicator of crime trends, assuming the police remain
consistent over dealing with the crimes. Police statistics are also a reliable
measure of crimes that are often reported and recorded, for example
homicide and vehicle theft.
One of the strengths of PRC is that it is considered reliable as although the
results are obtained from different constabularies and different police
officers, they are done so using the same procedures and policies. However,
the different constabularies may classify the same incident differently, often
due to decriminalisation and subjectivity. Another limitation is reliability
being linked to accuracy, so errors could be made when details of the crimes
are recorded.
A strength of the PRC in terms of validity is that the statistics are based on
all the recorded crimes across England and Wales. On the other hand, the
statistics don’t account for unreported and unrecorded crimes, for example
the police recorded just over 45,000 rape cases in 2016-2017, but this
